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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
The Role Of Gap-43 Phosphorylation In Axon Behavior In The Developing Zebrafish Visual System, Jennifer Forecki
The Role Of Gap-43 Phosphorylation In Axon Behavior In The Developing Zebrafish Visual System, Jennifer Forecki
Theses and Dissertations
Developing neurons extend processes to specific targets and establish connections that are essential for future function of the nervous system. One of these processes, the axon, has a motile tip called a growth cone that rearranges its membrane-associated actin cytoskeleton to turn toward or away from environmental guidance cues. Growth associated protein 43 (GAP-43) is one of the most abundant proteins associated with axonal growth cone membranes and is known to modulate the formation and stability of the actin cytoskeleton during axon guidance. Protein kinase C (PKC)-mediated phosphorylation of GAP-43 on serine 42 regulates its interactions with actin. Phosphorylated GAP-43 …
Taking Tone Into Account: Cognitive Neuroscientific Investigations Of Mandarin Chinese Spoken Word Processing, Jeffrey G. Malins
Taking Tone Into Account: Cognitive Neuroscientific Investigations Of Mandarin Chinese Spoken Word Processing, Jeffrey G. Malins
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
To date, theories of how humans recognize spoken words have yet to account for tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese. One reason for this is that we know relatively little about how native speakers of tonal languages process spoken words in the brain. This dissertation addresses this problem by examining Mandarin spoken word processing in both adult native speakers and typically developing children. In adults, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess the extent to which the brain regions involved in processing tonal information are distinct from those involved in vowel processing (Chapter 2), while event related potentials …
Understanding Less Than Nothing: Children's Neural Response To Negative Numbers Shifts Across Age And Accuracy, Margaret M. Gullick, George Wolford
Understanding Less Than Nothing: Children's Neural Response To Negative Numbers Shifts Across Age And Accuracy, Margaret M. Gullick, George Wolford
Dartmouth Scholarship
We examined the brain activity underlying the development of our understanding of negative numbers, which are amounts lacking direct physical counterparts. Children performed a paired comparison task with positive and negative numbers during an fMRI session. As previously shown in adults, both pre-instruction fifth-graders and post-instruction seventh-graders demonstrated typical behavioral and neural distance effects to negative numbers, where response times and parietal and frontal activity increased as comparison distance decreased. We then determined the factors impacting the distance effect in each age group. Behaviorally, the fifth-grader distance effect for negatives was significantly predicted only by positive comparison accuracy, indicating that …
Alternations Of Nmda And Gabab Receptor Function In Development: A Potential Animal Model Of Schizophrenia, Monica Bolton
Alternations Of Nmda And Gabab Receptor Function In Development: A Potential Animal Model Of Schizophrenia, Monica Bolton
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder that affects up to 3% of the world population. The behavioral symptoms are categorized into positive and negative symptoms, which appear during late adolescence/early adulthood. Unfortunately, the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of the disease are poorly understood. Several hypotheses exist to explain mechanisms contributing to these behavioral alterations. One model proposes that a reduced function of the NMDA glutamate receptor on specific GABAergic interneurons may be responsible for deficits in schizophrenia. Post-mortem investigations provide evidence of reductions in both glutamate and GABA-related proteins in patients with schizophrenia. Further, GABAergic interneurons that are activated …
The Role Of Progesterone Receptor In The Development Of The Mesocortical Dopaminergic Pathway, Jari Willing
The Role Of Progesterone Receptor In The Development Of The Mesocortical Dopaminergic Pathway, Jari Willing
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
The mesocortical dopaminergic pathway, comprised of projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the prefrontal cortex (PFC), mediates many of the most complex forms of cognitive behaviors and has been associated with clinical disorders such as ADHD and schizophrenia. While this circuit continues to develop throughout much of the lifespan, there is a rapid period of maturation, early in development, in which this circuit is highly sensitive to disruption. Steroid hormone receptors are powerful transcription factors, capable of affecting a variety of neurodevelopmental processes and are expressed in many regions throughout the developing brain. Specifically, the nuclear progesterone receptor …