Life Sciences Commons^™

A New Addition To The Trademark Litigator's Tool Kit: A Neuroscientific Index Of Mark Similarity, Mark Bartholomew, Zhihao Zhang, Ming Hsu, Andrew S. Kayser, Femke Van Horen

Journal Articles

With trademark law always striving to keep abreast of new developments in science and technology, the authors of this article propose an innovative, neuroscience-based approach to answering the time-honored question of whether likelihood of consumer confusion exists in a particular dispute.

Nucleus Accumbens Core Single Cell Ensembles Bidirectionally Respond To Experienced Versus Observed Aversive Events, Oyku Dinckol, Noah Harris Wenger, Jennifer E Zachry, Munir Gunes Kutlu

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

Fear learning is a critical feature of survival skills among mammals. In rodents, fear learning manifests itself through direct experience of the aversive event or social transmission of aversive stimuli such as observing and acting on conspecifics' distress. The neuronal network underlying the social transmission of information largely overlaps with the brain regions that mediate behavioral responses to aversive and rewarding stimuli. In this study, we recorded single cell activity patterns of nucleus accumbens (NAc) core neurons using in vivo optical imaging of calcium transients via miniature scopes. This cutting-edge imaging methodology not only allows us to record activity patterns …

Visual Imagery Subcategories And Their Neural Associations, Miguel Ibarguren

Undergraduate Scholarship and Creative Works

This literature review compiles research findings related to the brain areas associated with various visual imagery subcategories and explores their contributions to them. Through a search procedure, four research projects were used to identify ten distinct brain areas that demonstrated greater involvement in visual imagery. The visual imagery subcategories discussed in these research projects, and investigated in this review, include scene construction, episodic memory, imagery vividness, and visuospatial imagery. Scene construction was found to utilize the parahippocampal gyrus, hippocampus, retrosplenial cortex, and posterior parietal cortex. Episodic memory involves the same areas as scene construction, but also includes the precuneus and …

Jun Upregulation Drives Aberrant Transposable Element Mobilization, Associated Innate Immune Response, And Impaired Neurogenesis In Alzheimer’S Disease, Chiara Scopa, Samantha Barnada, Maria Cicardi, Mo Singer, Davide Trotti, Marco Trizzino

Farber Institute for Neuroscience Faculty Papers

Adult neurogenic decline, inflammation, and neurodegeneration are phenotypic hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Mobilization of transposable elements (TEs) in heterochromatic regions was recently reported in AD, but the underlying mechanisms are still underappreciated. Combining functional genomics with the differentiation of familial and sporadic AD patient derived-iPSCs into hippocampal progenitors, CA3 neurons, and cerebral organoids, we found that the upregulation of the AP-1 subunit, c-Jun, triggers decondensation of genomic regions containing TEs. This leads to the cytoplasmic accumulation of HERVK-derived RNA-DNA hybrids, the activation of the cGAS-STING cascade, and increased levels of cleaved caspase-3, suggesting the initiation of programmed cell death …

The Psychology Of The Stage: Intersections Of Cognitive Science And Theatre, Ariya Selvakumar

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

By engaging audiences in a stranger’s story, theatre often depends on emotional contagion and empathetic responses to strike interest and investment in characters and their circumstances. Mirror neuron systems are those highly tied to the activation of empathy. These neurons are brain cells that activate when we perform an action and witness an action being performed. For example, when someone is crying, a subset of neurons that fire when we cry will also fire in response to seeing this action, thus often leading to emotional contagion. With an understanding of cognitive science, we can closely examine the perspective-taking and emotion-prediction …

Covid‑19‑Related Risk, Resilience, And Mental Health Among Mexican American Mothers Across The First Year Of The Pandemic, Amy L. Non, Elizabeth S. Clausing, Sandraluz Lara‑Cinisomo, Kimberly L. D’Anna Hernandez

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

Background Latina mothers have been especially affected by the pandemic and historically exhibit high rates of depression and anxiety. However, few longitudinal studies have assessed the effect of the pandemic on this vulnerable population. We hypothesized that COVID-19-related stressors would associate with psychological distress among Latina mothers across the first year of the pandemic.

Methods We investigated COVID-19-related impact, stigma, and fears across two critical time points and changes in these measures in relation to changes in maternal anxiety and depression among mothers of Mexican descent living in Southern California (n=152). Surveys were administered within 5–16 weeks of …

Reduced Grey Matter Volume In Adolescents With Conduct Disorder: A Region‑Of‑Interest Analysis Using Multivariate Generalized Linear Modeling, Ru Zhang, R. James R. Blair, Karina S. Blair, Matthew Dobbertin, Jordan E. Pierce, Johannah Bashford‑Largo, Ahria J. Dominguez, Melissa Hatch, Sahil Bajaj

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

Background Conduct disorder (CD) involves a group of behavioral and emotional problems that usually begins during childhood or adolescence. Structural brain alterations have been observed in CD, including the amygdala, insula, ventrolateral and medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and fusiform gyrus. The current study developed a multivariate generalized linear model (GLM) to differentiate adolescents with CD from typically developing (TD) adolescents in terms of grey matter volume (GMV).

Methods The whole‐brain structural MRI data were collected from 96 adolescents with CD (mean age = 16.188 ± 1.259 years; mean IQ = 104.292 ± 8.107 ; 63 males) and 90 …

Synapse-Associated Protein 102 – A Highly Mobile Maguk Predominate In Early Synaptogenesis, Dominique Alexandra De Los Reyes, Mohammad Yaman Karkoutly, Yonghong Zhang

School of Integrative Biological and Chemical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders are primarily characterized by serious structural and functional changes in excitatory glutamatergic synapses in the brain, resulting in many synaptic deficits and aberrant synapse loss. It is a big challenge to reverse these synaptic impairments as a treatment for neurological diseases in the field. Extensive research on glutamate receptors as therapeutic targets has been done but with little success shown in human trials. PSD-95-like MAGUK proteins perform a pivotal role in regulating the trafficking and stability of glutamate receptors that are important to postsynaptic structure and function. MAGUK and MAGUK-modulated synaptic pathways are becoming promising candidates …

Insights Into The Molecular Roles Of Foxr2 In The Pathology Of Primary Pediatric Brain Tumors, Rajendra Gharbaran

Publications and Research

Forkhead box gene R2 (FOXR2) belongs to the family of FOX genes which codes for highly conserved transcription factors (TFs) with critical roles in biological processes ranging from development to organogenesis to metabolic and immune regulation to cellular homeostasis. A number of FOX genes are associated with cancer development and progression and poor prognosis. A growing body of evidence suggests that FOXR2 is an oncogene. Studies suggested important roles for FOXR2 in cancer cell growth, metastasis, and drug resistance. Recent studies showed that FOXR2 is overexpressed by a subset of newly identified entities of embryonal tumors. This review discusses the …

Specialized Late Cingulo-Opercular Network Activation Elucidates The Mechanisms Underlying Decisions About Ambiguity, Jordan E. Pierce, Nathan M. Petro, Elizabeth Clancy, Caterina Gratton, Steven E. Petersen, Maital Neta

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

Cortical task control networks, including the cingulo-opercular (CO) network play a key role in decision-making across a variety of functional domains. In particular, the CO network functions in a performance reporting capacity that supports successful task performance, especially in response to errors and ambiguity. In two studies testing the contribution of the CO network to ambiguity processing, we presented a valence bias task in which masked clearly and ambiguously valenced emotional expressions were slowly revealed over several seconds. This slow reveal task design provides a window into the decision-making mechanisms as they unfold over the course of a trial. In …

Editorial: Sex Differences In The Neurobiology Of Drug Relapse Vulnerability, Daniel F Manvich, Jessica A Loweth, Wendy J Lynch, Jayme R Mcreynolds

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bisphenol-A And Phthalate Metabolism In Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders, T Peter Stein, Margaret D Schluter, Robert A Steer, Xue Ming

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

BACKGROUND: The etiology of autism spectrum (ASD) and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity (ADHD) disorders are multifactorial. Epidemiological studies have shown associations with environmental pollutants, such as plasticizers. This study focused on two of these compounds, the Bisphenol-A (BPA) and Diethylhexyl Phthalate (DEHP). The major pathway for BPA and DEHP excretion is via glucuronidation. Glucuronidation makes insoluble substances more water-soluble allowing for their subsequent elimination in urine.

HYPOTHESIS: Detoxification of these two plasticizers is compromised in children with ASD and ADHD. Consequently, their tissues are more exposed to these two plasticizers.

METHODS: We measured the efficiency of glucuronidation in three groups of children, …

Hla-Ii-Dependent Neuroimmune Changes In Group A Streptococcal Necrotizing Fasciitis, Ganesh Ambigapathy, Santhosh Mukundan, Kumi Nagamoto-Combs, Colin Combs, Suba Nookala

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications

Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A Streptococcus, GAS) bacteria cause a spectrum of human diseases ranging from self-limiting pharyngitis and mild, uncomplicated skin infections (impetigo, erysipelas, and cellulitis) to highly morbid and rapidly invasive, life-threatening infections such as streptococcal toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis (NF). HLA class II allelic polymorphisms are linked with differential outcomes and severity of GAS infections. The dysregulated immune response and peripheral cytokine storm elicited due to invasive GAS infections increase the risk for toxic shock and multiple organ failure in genetically susceptible individuals. We hypothesized that, while the host immune mediators regulate the immune responses against …

Music Advocacy: The Cognitive Development, Behavioral And Emotional Management, And Academic Success That Music Education Provides Students In Louisiana’S Low Socioeconomic Elementary Schools, Cory D. Dugar

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There are many technological curricular activities in math and science classrooms, yet few are found in music classrooms. Although many elementary schools may be benefiting from advocacy for music and technology, many elementary schools in the state of Louisiana have lost funding for music programs. For the Louisiana Department of Education to act as an advocate for music education, there must be a thorough understanding of the benefits of music education. Extensive research is one way to suggest that elementary music classes can raise the cognitive capacity of elementary students and could be the catalyst for ensuring the upcoming generation’s …

Assessing Blood Oxygen Level–Dependent Signal Variability As A Biomarker Of Brain Injury In Sport-Related Concussion, Evan D. Anderson, Tanveer Talukdar, Grace Goodwin, Valentina Di Pietro, Kamal M. Yakoub, Christopher E. Zwilling, David Davies, Antonio Belli, Aron K. Barbey

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

Mild traumatic brain injury is a complex neurological disorder of significant concern among athletes who play contact sports. Athletes who sustain sport-related concussion typically undergo physical examination and neurocognitive evaluation to determine injury severity and return-to-play status. However, traumatic disruption to neurometabolic processes can occur with minimal detectable anatomic pathology or neurocognitive alteration, increasing the risk that athletes may be cleared for return-to-play during a vulnerable period and receive a repetitive injury. This underscores the need for sensitive functional neuroimaging methods to detect altered cerebral physiology in concussed athletes. The present study compared the efficacy of Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and …

Identification Of Structural Brain Alterations In Adolescents With Depressive Symptomatology, J. Bashford‑Largo, R. James R. Blair, Karina S. Blair, Matthew Dobbertin, Ahria Dominguez, Melissa Hatch, Sahil Bajaj

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

Introduction: Depressive symptoms can emerge as early as childhood and may lead to adverse situations in adulthood. Studies have examined structural brain alternations in individuals with depressive symptoms, but findings remain inconclusive. Furthermore, previous studies have focused on adults or used a categorical approach to assess depression. The current study looks to identify grey matter volumes (GMV) that predict depressive symptomatology across a clinically concerning sample of adolescents.

Methods: Structural MRI data were collected from 338 clinically concerning adolescents (mean age = 15.30 SD=2.07; mean IQ = 101.01 SD=12.43; 132 F). Depression symptoms were indexed via the Mood …

Microglial Response To Glucocorticoids During Chronic Sleep Fragmentation, Christian Chelson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sleep is one of the body’s greatest and most basic needs. Chronic sleep loss (<6 hours a day) is linked to many cardiovascular issues, diabetes, and inflammatory conditions and has been shown to lower life expectancy. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a complication that causes sleep fragmentation in >8% of adults from developed countries, and many with OSA may be unaware of their condition. Having long-term OSA is linked to neuroinflammation caused by activated microglia in the brain, but the mechanics of this inflammation are not well understood. It is known that glucocorticoids, steroid hormones produced and released from the adrenal glands, have a suppressive effect on microglia. The purpose of this study is to explore the role that glucocorticoids have upon microglia activation induced by chronic sleep fragmentation (SF). C57BL/6J mice were …

Methods To Study Activity Dependent Protein Synthesis In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Megan Webb, Karin F K Ejendal, Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

It is estimated by the World Health Organization that 1 in 100 children have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition characterized by neurological differences that may impact a person’s learning or behavior. Clinically, ASD symptoms are alleviated with behavioral or pharmacological therapies, however, not all patients respond to these interventions. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising treatment of Parkinson’s disease that could also be effective in treating ASD. SynGAP1 is a protein involved in neuronal action that is crucial for regulating synaptic plasticity. Mutations in the SYNGAP1 gene causing haploinsufficiency can result in the manifestation of ASD symptoms. This …

Teaching Cognitive / Behavioral Neuroscience Through A Dei Lens, Jamie Opper

Psychology Faculty Publications

Introduction: As higher education continues to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), cognitive/behavioral neuroscience and other physiologically-based psychology courses may face challenges incorporating DEI issues into the curriculum relative to other subfields of psychology.

Statement of the Problem: Instructors of these courses may believe that their discipline is more objective than other psychology subfields, or may simply be unsure where to insert discussion of DEI issues into their course material. Literature Review: There is a substantial evidence regarding both the fallacy of total scientific objectivity and how structural inequalities can impact brain structure and function in historically marginalized populations. Teaching …

Specialized Late Cingulo-Opercular Network Activation Elucidates The Mechanisms Underlying Decisions About Ambiguity, Jordan E. Pierce, Nathan M. Petro, Elizabeth Clancy, Caterina Gratton, Steven E. Petersen, Maital Neta

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

Cortical task control networks, including the cingulo-opercular (CO) network play a key role in decision-making across a variety of functional domains. In particular, the CO network functions in a performance reporting capacity that supports successful task performance, especially in response to errors and ambiguity. In two studies testing the contribution of the CO network to ambiguity processing, we presented a valence bias task in which masked clearly and ambiguously valenced emotional expressions were slowly revealed over several seconds. This slow reveal task design provides a window into the decision-making mechanisms as they unfold over the course of a trial. In …

Effects Of Sex And Estrous Cycle On Intravenous Oxycodone Self-Administration And The Reinstatement Of Oxycodone-Seeking Behavior In Rats, Nicole M. Hinds, Ireneusz D. Wojtas, Corinne A. Gallagher, Claire M. Corbett, Daniel F. Manvich

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

The increasing misuse of both prescription and illicit opioids has culminated in a national healthcare crisis in the United States. Oxycodone is among the most widely prescribed and misused opioid pain relievers and has been associated with a high risk for transition to compulsive opioid use. Here, we sought to examine potential sex differences and estrous cycle-dependent effects on the reinforcing efficacy of oxycodone, as well as on stress-induced or cue-induced oxycodone-seeking behavior, using intravenous (IV) oxycodone self-administration and reinstatement procedures. In experiment 1, adult male and female Long-Evans rats were trained to self-administer 0.03 mg/kg/inf oxycodone according to a …

Analysis Of The Paraventricular Nucleus Of The Hypothalamus After Exposure To Decabromodiphenyl Ether In Mice, Tia Blossomgame, Hermei Herman, Sharlenn La, Jocelyn Saquisili, Annabella Vargas, Grace Martinichio, Vincent P. Markowski

McNair Scholars Program

No abstract provided.

Differentiating Between Us & Them: Reduced In-Group Bias As A Novel Mechanism Linking Childhood Violence Exposure With Internalizing Psychopathology, Steven W. Kasparek, Maya L. Rosen, Lucy A. Lurie, Mina Cikara, Kelly Sambrook, Dario Cvencek, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Katie A. Mclaughlin

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Strong in-group bonds, facilitated by implicit favoritism for in-group members (i.e., in-group bias), promote mental health across development. Yet, we know little about how the development of in-group bias is shaped by early-life experiences. Childhood violence exposure is known to alter social information processing biases. Violence exposure may also influence social categorization processes, including in-group biases, in ways that influence risk for psychopathology. We examined associations of childhood violence exposure with psychopathology and behavioral and neural indices of implicit and explicit bias for novel groups in children followed longitudinally across three time points from age 5 to 10 years old …

Functional Network Reconfiguration Supporting Memory-Guided Attention, Kylie Isenburg, Thomas M. Morin, Maya L. Rosen, David C. Somers, Chantal E. Stern

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Studies have identified several brain regions whose activations facilitate attentional deployment via long-term memories. We analyzed task-based functional connectivity at the network and node-specific level to characterize large-scale communication between brain regions underlying long-term memory guided attention. We predicted default mode, cognitive control, and dorsal attention subnetworks would contribute differentially to long-term memory guided attention, such that network-level connectivity would shift based on attentional demands, requiring contribution of memory-specific nodes within default mode and cognitive control subnetworks. We expected that these nodes would increase connectivity with one another and with dorsal attention subnetworks during long-term memory guided attention. Additionally, we …

Asymmetric Event-Related Potential Priming Effects Between English Letters And American Sign Language Fingerspelling Fonts, Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Katherine J. Midgley, Karen Emmory, Phillip J. Holcomb

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Letter recognition plays an important role in reading and follows different phases of processing, from early visual feature detection to the access of abstract letter representations. Deaf ASL–English bilinguals experience orthography in two forms: English letters and fingerspelling. However, the neurobiological nature of fingerspelling representations, and the relationship between the two orthographies, remains unexplored. We examined the temporal dynamics of single English letter and ASL fingerspelling font processing in an unmasked priming paradigm with centrally presented targets for 200 ms preceded by 100 ms primes. Event-related brain potentials were recorded while participants performed a probe detection task. Experiment 1 examined …

An Erp Measure Of Non-Conscious Memory Reveals Dissociable Implicit Processes In Human Recognition Using An Open-Source Automated Analytic Pipeline, Richard J. Addante, Javier Lopez-Calderon, Nathan Allen, Carter Luck, Alana Muller, Lindsey Sirianni, Cory S. Inman, Daniel L. Drake

Psychology Student Publications

Non-conscious processing of human memory has traditionally been difficult to objectively measure and thus understand. A prior study on a group of hippocampal amnesia (N = 3) patients and healthy controls (N = 6) used a novel procedure for capturing neural correlates of implicit memory using event-related potentials (ERPs): old and new items were equated for varying levels of memory awareness, with ERP differences observed from 400 to 800 ms in bilateral parietal regions that were hippocampal-dependent. The current investigation sought to address the limitations of that study by increasing the sample of healthy subjects (N = …

Effects Of Creative Movement & Play Based Interventions On Motor Skills Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results From A Randomized Controlled Trial, Sharanya Chandu

Honors Scholar Theses

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of creative movement, general movement, and seated play interventions on bilateral coordination, balance, and upper limb coordination motor skills of children with autism spectrum disorder.

Methods: This data was collected as a part of a multisite intervention study, Play and Move study, by the University of Connecticut and University of Delaware. Participants were contacted through the SPARK database, UConn Kids, fliers sent to local autism services, schools, community centers and by posting information online or to listservs. Forty-five children agreed to participate in this study and were randomly assigned …

Community-Derived Core Concepts For Neuroscience Higher Education, Audrey Chen, Kimberley A. Phillips, Jennifer E. Schaefer, Patrick M. Sonner

Biology Faculty Publications

Core concepts provide a framework for organizing facts and understanding in neuroscience higher education curricula. Core concepts are overarching principles that identify patterns in neuroscience processes and phenomena and can be used as a foundational scaffold for neuroscience knowledge. The need for community-derived core concepts is pressing, because both the pace of research and number of neuroscience programs are rapidly expanding. While general biology and many subdisciplines within biology have identified core concepts, neuroscience has yet to establish a community-derived set of core concepts for neuroscience higher education. We used an empirical approach involving more than 100 neuroscience educators to …

Rhythms In Barriers And Fluids: Circadian Clock Regulation In The Aging Neurovascular Unit, Lea Skapetze, Sharon Owino, Eng H. Lo, Ken Arai, Martha Merrow, Mary Harrington

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

The neurovascular unit is where two very distinct physiological systems meet: The central nervous system (CNS) and the blood. The permeability of the barriers separating these systems is regulated by time, including both the 24 h circadian clock and the longer processes of aging. An endogenous circadian rhythm regulates the transport of molecules across the blood-brain barrier and the circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid and the glymphatic system. These fluid dynamics change with time of day, and with age, and especially in the context of neurodegeneration. Factors may differ depending on brain region, as can be highlighted by consideration of …

Neuropsychiatric Sequelae Of Traumatic Brain Injury: The Impact Of Aggression And Self-Perception On The Quality Of Life Of The Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors, Aida Bazarganpour

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The occurrence of neuropsychiatric sequelae is frequently observed among survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI). These neuropsychiatric sequelae can characterize the quality of life of TBI survivors. Among these neuropsychiatric conditions, aggression and self-perception are significant because of their potential to impair survivors’ well-being. Long-term social isolation, common among TBI survivors, has also been linked with an increased likelihood of aggressive behavior. However, research investigating the effects of aggression and self-perception on quality of life of TBI survivors is limited. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the relationships connecting aggression and self-perception with quality of life of …