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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Modulation Of Stress-Induced Behaviors Through Orexinergic Signaling In The Basolateral Amygdala, Jazmine D W Yaeger
Modulation Of Stress-Induced Behaviors Through Orexinergic Signaling In The Basolateral Amygdala, Jazmine D W Yaeger
Dissertations and Theses
Stress initiates behavioral disturbances, which are often seen as symptoms of psychiatric disorders, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. While stress is involved in the formation of disordered states, only certain individuals are vulnerable to, and therefore experience, these outcomes. Further, females are more likely to be diagnosed with stress-induced psychiatric disorders. Elements within stress neurocircuitry offer insight into differential behavioral outcomes associated with stressful experiences; and the basolateral amygdala (BLA), where pro- and anti-stress signals are integrated, is likely an important mediator in phenotype development. The orexin system, too, while being strongly associated with sleep, motivation, and …
Sex Differences In Context Fear Neural Circuitry And Behavior Across Development, Lorianna Marie Colon
Sex Differences In Context Fear Neural Circuitry And Behavior Across Development, Lorianna Marie Colon
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
Over the span of five decades, staggering progress has been made in elucidating the neural circuits involved in fear learning. Research focused on rodents and healthy individuals has been instrumental in elucidating how abnormalities in this circuitry may lend to increased prevalence of various fear and anxiety disorders. However, many of the key findings concerning the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of fear memories have been established in the adult male rodent, leaving a gap in knowledge as to whether females and developing animals process fear and stress inducing information in a similar fashion. Compared to men, women are twice as …
Neural Substrates Of Fear Generalization And Its Associations With Anxiety And Intolerance Of Uncertainty, Ashley Ann Huggins
Neural Substrates Of Fear Generalization And Its Associations With Anxiety And Intolerance Of Uncertainty, Ashley Ann Huggins
Theses and Dissertations
Fear generalization - the tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening due to perceptual similarity to a learned threat – is an adaptive process. Overgeneralization, however, is maladaptive and has been implicated in a number of anxiety disorders. Neuroimaging research has indicated several regions sensitive to effects of generalization, including regions involved in fear excitation (e.g., amygdala, insula) and inhibition (e.g., ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Research has suggested several other small brain regions may play an important role in this process (e.g., hippocampal subfields, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis [BNST], habenula), but, to date, these regions have not been examined …
Cerebellum-Seeded Functional Connectivity Changes In Trait-Anxious Individuals Undergoing Attention Bias Modification Training, Katherine Elwell
Cerebellum-Seeded Functional Connectivity Changes In Trait-Anxious Individuals Undergoing Attention Bias Modification Training, Katherine Elwell
All NMU Master's Theses
Anxiety and anxiety related disorders are increasing at a drastic rate in the past decade, with the NIMH reporting that 31.1% of U.S. adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Anxiety is commonly characterized by increased attention bias to threat. Attention Bias Modification (ABM) is a new treatment used to reduce individual’s attention bias towards threat. The extent to which ABM leads to underlying neural changes is still unknown. The cerebellum is a neglected brain structure, with new research provides evidence that cerebellum’s functional connectivity and shared networks with threat processing regions has a direct …
Targeting Ampa Receptor Modulation During Early Life Adversity: A Mediator For Threat Associated Memories, Roseanna M. Zanca
Targeting Ampa Receptor Modulation During Early Life Adversity: A Mediator For Threat Associated Memories, Roseanna M. Zanca
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Early life adversity (ELA) is the exposure to a single or to multiple traumatic events before the age of 18 that go beyond the child’s coping. These adverse events are often exacerbated during adolescence particularly when cognitive performance is compromised. Adolescents who experienced ELA may show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while not vividly recalling the early life trauma. These individuals show atypical connectivity between prefrontal-amygdala and hippocampus, all of which is associated with an increased risk of experiencing a traumatic event again later in life. While clinical research has increasingly stressed the importance in addressing the long-lasting consequences …
Learning To Feel Safe: A Translational Study Of The Influence Of Safety Learning On Anxiety-Related Overgeneralized Fear, Hyein Cho
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health diagnoses, affecting about a third of the population in their lifetime. However, approximately a third of individuals with anxiety do not respond to current treatment approaches, highlighting the need to identify additional potential therapeutic mechanisms. Safety learning is one such mechanism, but methodological challenges and a dearth of research have prevented the field from advancing the understanding of the role of safety learning in the etiology and remediation of anxiety disorders. Animal research, using single-cued safety learning paradigms, has yielded promising early findings, demonstrating that safety learning directly reduces anxiety-related behaviors …
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
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 …
Neural Correlates Underlying The Interactions Between Anxiety And Cannabis Use In Predicting Motor Response Inhibition, Richard Ward
Neural Correlates Underlying The Interactions Between Anxiety And Cannabis Use In Predicting Motor Response Inhibition, Richard Ward
Theses and Dissertations
The ability to effectively withhold an inappropriate response is a critical feature of cognitive control. Prior research indicates alterations in neural processes required for motor response inhibition in anxious individuals, including those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and those who engage in regular cannabis use. However, thus far most research has examined how anxiety-related symptoms and cannabis use influence response inhibition in isolation of one another. The current study examined the interactions between anxious symptomology and recent cannabis use in a sample that recently experienced a traumatic event using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the completion of a Stop-Signal …
Long-Term Impacts Of Acute Stressor Exposure On Locus Coeruleus Function And Anxiety-Like Behavior In Rats, Olga Borodovitsyna
Long-Term Impacts Of Acute Stressor Exposure On Locus Coeruleus Function And Anxiety-Like Behavior In Rats, Olga Borodovitsyna
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations
Stress is a physiological state characterized by behavioral arousal that occurs during exposure to harmful or threatening stimuli, and usually facilitates an adaptive behavioral response. The persistence of stress sometimes causes it to become maladaptive, potentially contributing to disease development, including physiological complications with altered neuroendocrine signaling and impaired function of organ systems, and psychological conditions including depression and anxiety. Anxiety disorders in particular are associated with a history of stress and are the most common class of mental disorders, with a lifetime prevalence of 33.7% in the general population. The locus coeruleus (LC) is a major node in the …
The Effect Of Gonadal Steroids Following Repeat Mild Traumatic Brain Injury On Anxiety-Like Behaviors In Rats, Trevor Nykamp
The Effect Of Gonadal Steroids Following Repeat Mild Traumatic Brain Injury On Anxiety-Like Behaviors In Rats, Trevor Nykamp
Master's Theses
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects millions of people in the U.S. each year. This thesis worked to address anxiety, a common emotional symptom following TBI, by utilizing a five-hit repeat mild TBI (rmTBI) experimental model. First, changes in gonadal status following injury and the severity of anxiety symptoms experienced were investigated. Our data revealed that suppressed testosterone levels following rmTBI resulted in significantly more anxiety-like behaviors across several observational variables. Even more, some of these behaviors were reduced by providing testosterone supplementation immediately following injury.Another goal of this work was to investigate the role of mitochondrial dysfunction, measured by COX4i1 …