Life Sciences Commons^™

Sex Differences In The Co-Expression Of Estrogen Receptor Alpha With Corticotropin Releasing Factor, Deborah Ariyibi

Biological Sciences

Women are far more likely to develop anxiety and depression than men. It is believed that the dysregulation of the HPA axis by the binding of corticotropin -releasing factor (CRF) to the corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1 (CRFR1) contributes to the likelihood of these stress- related disorders. Estrogens acting through Estrogen receptor alpha (ERa) have been shown to increase anxiety production upon activating the HPA axis. In this current study, we explored whether CRF-expressing neurons in various regions of the brain express ERa. The levels of ERa were counted in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST), the medial preoptic …

Examination Of The Association Between C - Reactive Protein(Crp) And Covid-19 Infection Severity And Length Of Hospitalization, Abdulahi Aremu Ayanwale

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Chronic stress can lead to many systemic complications and low-grade systemic inflammation including increased levels of inflammatory cytokines, such as C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP is a marker of systemic inflammation and is associated with depression and perceived stress. Elevations can result in ineffective immune responses, thereby increasing the risk of complications and mortality from infections. Recent evidence suggests that uncontrolled inflammatory responses associated with COVID 19 are a major determinant of disease severity.  The COVID 19 is transmitted from one person to another through droplets from coughing, sneezing, talking, touching droplets on surfaces and contamination by hand-to-mouth routes. The mechanism …

Four Weeks Of 16:8 Time-Restricted Feeding On Stress, Sleep, Quality Of Life, Hunger Level, And Body Composition In Healthy Adults: A Pilot Study On Wellness Optimization, Gurinder Bains, Everett Lohman, Michael Moh, Noha Daher, Lee Berk

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: Sustainable methods of dietary lifestyle changes are essential to long term weight loss maintenance and enhancement in overall health and wellness. A novel modified alternative method to caloric restriction is Time-Restricted Feeding (TRF), a sub-type of Intermittent Fasting. The purpose of this pilot study was to determine the effect of four weeks of TRF (without caloric deficit) on body composition, stress levels, sleep quality, hunger level, and quality of life.

Methods: Sixteen participants, 9 males and 7 females, mean age 34.0 ± 11.7 years, completed the four-week protocol. Fasting program was 16 hours from the time of …

Carpe Diem: Winner And Loser Effects Are Constrained To Same-Day Competitions In Collegiate Baseball, Omar Tonsi Eldakar, Natalie Buckwold, Andrew C. Gallup

Biology Faculty Articles

Competitive outcomes can be significantly influenced by previous experience of winning and losing, whereby all things considered, winners are likely to continue winning and losers are likely to keep losing. Although short-lived, the underlying hormonal changes associated with these effects have been observed into the following day. Here, we assess the functional persistence of winner and loser effects in college baseball by investigating outcomes (splits vs. sweeps) of multigame series played over one or more days. Results show that sweeps occur at disproportionately higher frequencies in single-day series, but drop off to expected levels for multiday series.

University Students Using Physical Activity As A Coping Strategy During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jory Fulcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the most recent threat to global health (Fauci, Lane, & Redfield, 2020), impacting university students’ mental and physical health. Few studies currently exist that investigate the impact of online learning and COVID-19 have on stress and coping in university students (Bao, 2020; Xiao et al., 2020). Therefore, the purpose of the study was to investigate if students were using physical activity as a coping strategy for stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey assessing student stress, physical activity, and coping flexibility was completed by 276 undergraduate students (mean age 21.1 ± 2.7 …

A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Psychological Outcomes Of Mobile Guided Resonant Frequency Breathing In Young Adults With Elevated Stress During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Al Amira Safa Shehab

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Deep breathing practices have shown promise in reducing stress, anxiety, and depression in different populations, including young adults. Specifically, resonant frequency breathing can exert an impact on stress response systems through the vagus nerve and the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This may induce reductions in stress and improvement in emotion regulation. Young adults, including college students, tend to be at a higher risk for psychological distress, as they face several psychosocial challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed new and unique stressors that resulted in higher levels of stress and emotional symptoms and it has been shown that this may have placed …

Estrogen Modulation Of Vta Dopamine Neuron Physiology And Behavioral Responsivity To Variable Social Stressors, Mary R. Shanley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The behavioral output of different animals, or even the same animal in different contexts, is remarkably variable in response to the same external stimulus. This behavioral diversity is due to the complex integration of external and internal stimuli, through both neuronal and hormonal signals that selects the best behavioral response. By their nature as long-distance signaling molecules, hormones play a critical role in communicating information about internal states across the organism. Many hormones produced in the periphery target the central nervous system to modulate animal behavior, selecting for behaviors that are appropriate over behaviors that are maladaptive in that specific …

Examining The Role Of Chloride Homeostasis And Pge2 Signaling In The Neuroendocrine Stress Response To Inflammation, Samuel A. Mestern

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The brain senses inflammatory signals and drives the release of glucocorticoids (GCs) — potent immunosuppressants — via the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This inflammation-induced HPA axis activation is largely mediated by prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), acting on two subtypes of the PGE2 receptor, EP1 and EP3. Recently, our group revealed EP3 signaling mechanisms that excite HPA axis regulatory neurons. This thesis sought to tease out the remaining EP1 signaling mechanisms. Considering that the excitability of HPA axis regulatory neurons is constrained by GABA_A receptor-mediated synaptic inhibition that relies on low-level intracellular Cl^-. We hypothesized that PGE2-EP1 …

The Correlation Between Dietary Intake, Stress, Food Insecurity, Physical Activity, Sleep, And Screen Time In College Students During Covid-19, Mariana Alves Olguin

Theses & Dissertations

College students with high stress levels are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, which may negatively impact their health. During COVID-19, college student’s lives were disrupted on multiple levels. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between dietary intake, perceived stress, food insecurity, sleep, screen time, and physical activity among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. College students at the University of the Incarnate Word (N=154) completed an online survey to assess dietary choices (Dietary Screener Questionnaires (DSQ) in the NHANES 2009-10: DSQ), food insecurity (6-item Short Form of the US Household Food Security Survey), stress …

Mitochondrial Genome Structure And Double Strand Break Repair In Arabidopsis Thaliana, Sterling Ericsson

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The mitochondrial genomes of plants are known for their variability in size and arrangement, yet low mutation rates in coding sequences. These opposing characteristics have been suggested to be due to the stability of their DNA maintenance processes and the usage of a double strand break repair (DSBR) system. The components of this repair complex remain poorly understood and only a few of the involved enzymes have been identified, making direct analysis difficult. The flowering plant species Arabidopsis thaliana has been used as a model organism for genome modification and subsequent phenotypic and genotypic impacts. The aims of this research …

Associations Between Physiological Biomarkers And Psychosocial Measures Of Pregnancy-Specific Anxiety And Depression With Support Intervention, Karen L Weis, Tony T Yuan, Katherine C Walker, Thomas F Gibbons, Wenyaw Chan

Journal Articles

Stress and anxiety significantly impact the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, and in pregnancy, the subsequent maternal-fetal response can lead to poor outcomes. The objective of this study was to assess the association between psychosocial measures of pregnancy-specific anxiety and physiologic inflammatory responses. Specifically, to determine the effectiveness of the Mentors Offering Maternal Support (M-O-M-S

Understanding Individual Differences Within Large-Scale Brain Networks Across Cognitive Contexts, Katherine L. Bottenhorn

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historically, human neuroimaging has studied brain regions “activated” during behavior and how they differ between groups of people. This approach has improved our understanding of healthy and disordered brain function, but has two key shortcomings. First, focusing on brain activation restricts how we understand the brain, ignoring vital, behind-the-scenes processing. In the past decade, the focus has shifted to communication between brain regions, or connectivity, revealing networks that exhibit subtle, consistent differences across behaviors and diagnoses. Without activation-focused research’s constraints, connectivity-focused neuroimaging research more comprehensively assesses brain function. Second, focusing on group differences ignores substantial within-group heterogeneity and often imposes …

What Role Does Stress Play In Overall Health?, Jamie Baum

Diet, Food, Exercise, and Nutrition (D-FEND)

What is Stress?

Alternative names for stress.

Types of stress.

Causes of stress.

Learning to recognize stress.

Wildfire As A Natural Stressor And Its Effect On Female Phenotype And Ornament Development, Stacey L. Weiss, Robert M. Brower

All Faculty Scholarship

Controlled low-intensity fires are commonly used in ecosystem management for both habitat restoration and wildfire management. Animals in those ecosystems may respond to fire by shifting energy allocation away from reproduction and growth, and toward maintenance. Stress-induced shifts in energy allocation may affect the expression of condition-dependent sexual signals, which are sensitive to energetic and physiological trade-offs mediated by glucocorticoids. Here, we examine the effect of fire on ornament expression, corticosterone, and other phenotypic traits in a population of striped plateau lizards, Sceloporus virgatus, affected by the Horseshoe 2 Fire in the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, USA. The condition-dependent female ornament …

Hormones Can Influence Drug Addiction-A Narrative Review, Morteza Karimian, Hamidreza Famitafreshi

BioMedicine

Drug addiction is a dangerous condition that is the concern of human societies. Nevertheless, several issues exist ahead of people with a drug use disorder during addiction. Accordingly, various types of studies have been conducted to understand better the problems that people with a drug use disorder encountered. People with a drug use disorder usually have a problem tolerating the withdrawal period and some relapse to drug abuse. Complementary studies further revealed that some hormones like oxytocin (OXT), vasopressin, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) axis hormones, sex hormones, thyroid hormones, and nutritional hormones are probably involved in addiction processes. These hormones completely …

The Disproportionate Impact Of Covid-19 On Women, Ava Stallone

Honors Scholar Theses

The impact of COVID-19 is placing a large strain on women. This can be seen through reports of mental health and financial concerns. Women are more vulnerable to COVID-19 related economic effects due to existing gender inequalities, which in turn may also have a negative effect on mental health. Through this study gender disproportion is looked at between mental health and COVID-19 financial concerns among women and men. The aim is to asses how COVID-19 financial concerns may be contributing to stress, anxiety, and depression. It is hypothesized that; women will report worse mental health and greater economic concerns than …

Exploring The Usefulness Of Mindfulness Practices Through Zoom Meetings In Reducing Anxiety And/Or Stress Of Adults With Learning And Developmental Disabilities During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Thatiane Abra

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explored which mindfulness meditations or mindfulness practices could be beneficial in the online sessions, the extent to which adults with learning and developmental disabilities could learn the practices remotely, and how stress and anxiety disorders could be reduced through online mindfulness interventions. Furthermore, it was also necessary to address the online sessions as the only mental health treatment possibility during the Coronavirus pandemic for the clients observed and the benefits and limitations of these interventions. Additionally, the importance of structure and routine for this population, the multi-modal structure of the interventions, and how attunement plays an important role …

Stress, Alcohol Use, And Punitive Parenting During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jennifer Price Wolf, Bridget Freisthler, Caileigh Chadwick

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Background
Emerging research suggests that parents are experiencing heightened stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parental stress is a risk factor for harsh or punitive parenting, and this association may be exacerbated by the use of alcohol.
Objective
We examine whether parental stress is associated with use of punitive parenting, as well as whether this association is modified by drinking pattern.
Participants & setting
We used advertisements and word-of-mouth to recruit 342 parents living in Central Ohio during the initial stay-at-home order for COVID-19.
Methods
We used geographic ecological momentary assessment (gEMA) to measure parental stress and punitive parenting during three …

Different Priming Treatments To Influence The Germination Of Atriplex L., Shengrong Hu, Dandan Zhou, Yong Gao

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.

Shelter Dogs Need A Home: The Effect Of Enrichment And Human Contact On The Welfare And Adoptability Of Shelter Dogs, Hannah G. Clark

Honors Projects

It comes as no surprise that an animal shelter can be a stressful place for dogs. Shelter conditions, accompanied by multiple, novel stimuli, produce a stressful environment that cause hormonal and behavioral responses in dogs housed in shelters. Many of the stereotypical behaviors produced by the stress of living in a shelter, which tend to worsen as length of stay increases, are undesirable to potential adopters. However, many studies have shown that enrichment with a variety of toys, exercise, and human interaction can buffer the stress response in shelter dogs and improve their well-being. Implementing obedience training and temporary fostering …

How The Covid-19 Pandemic Has Affected Physical Activity, Sleep And Mental Health In University Students, Faculty And Staff And To Examine The Relationship Between These Variables, Zachary Parisi

Health, Human Performance and Recreation Undergraduate Honors Theses

Background: Increased physical activity has been shown to be beneficial in decreasing stress. This project will expand on this knowledge while also studying college students, a demographic that has been less studied. This study will also examine the impact of COVID-19 on these variables. COVID-19 changed many peoples’ activities of daily life, and possibly physically activity levels, due to public health measures such as lockdowns and remote learning. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected physical activity, sleep, and mental health in university students, faculty and staff and to examine the relationship …

How Acetylation Regulates Metabolic Enzyme Function During Environmental Shifts, Jared Canonigo

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Organisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae can regulate the mechanisms of proteins through post-translational modification. These modifications play a vital role in functional proteomic activity because they can regulate protein activity, localization, and interaction with other cellular molecules. Such modifications include phosphorylation, methylation, and acetylation. The metabolic mechanisms of yeast became of keen interest to our lab because our lab noticed many stress defense proteins were being acetylated during stress heat shock. Notably, Adh1p and Adh2p showed both an increase and a decrease in acetylation at two lysine residues (K315 and K314) overtime during heat shock respectively, though the exact function …

Intergenerational Embodiment Of Stress : How The Broader Sociocultural Environment Can Shape Child Growth And Development, Elizabeth A. Holdsworth

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Childhood growth has been a means of identifying systemic, material inequalities within populations. The plasticity of growth is responsive to multiple environmental factors, most notably adequate nutrition, but also psychosocial stress. Psychosocial stress can be a function of the social and political economic ecology, reinforcing power hierarchies within societies. This dissertation proposes that childhood growth can also reflect inequality in the distribution of psychosocial stress exposure through mothers’ feelings of a chronically stressful environment conveyed through maternal-infant interactions.

Measuring Stress-Induced Hormone Levels In Dusky Grouse, Dominique Davis

Student Research Symposium

Very little is known ecologically about dusky grouse, an understudied upland game bird that is found throughout western North America. They are commonly hunted without comprehensive knowledge of their ecological importance, physiology, and life history. Our study is focused on dusky grouse that inhabit the eastern Great Basin ranges in White Pine County, Nevada where the landscape is predominantly open sagebrush valleys and patchy montane habitats. This species has adapted to living in this harsh, arid environment that is influenced by hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters. Stressors such as changes in climate, human interference, predation, habitat fragmentation, and …

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 …

Moderately Elevated Glucocorticoids Increase Mate Choosiness But Do Not Affect Sexual Proceptivity Or Preferences In Female Gray Treefrogs, Alexander T. Baugh, M. D. Gall, Stewart C. Silver , '20, M. A. Bee

Biology Faculty Works

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are rarely studied in the context of female mate choice, despite the expression of receptors for these products in sexual, sensory and decision-making brain areas. Here we investigated the effects of GC concentrations on three aspects of female sexual behavior in breeding Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis): proceptivity—a measure of sexual motivation, intraspecific mate preferences, and mate choosiness. To our knowledge this is the first experimental study on the endocrine basis of mate choosiness. We predicted that mate choosiness—forfeiting an initial mate preference to pursue a suddenly more attractive mate—would be particularly impacted by elevated GCs with moderate …

Effects Of Different Salts And Concentrations On Germination And Growth Of Leymus Chinensis, L. H. Huang, Z. W. Liang, H. Y. Ma, M. Liu, C. Yan, Z. C. Wang

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.

Growth Impacts In A Changing Ocean: Insights From Two Coral Reef Fishes In An Extreme Environment, Danielle D'Agostino, John A. Burt, Veronica Santinelli, Grace O. Vaughan, Ashely M. Fowler, Tom Reader, Brett M. Taylor, Andrew S. Hoey, Georgenes H. Cavalcante, Andrew G. Bauman, David A. Feary

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Determining the life-history consequences for fishes living in extreme and variable environments will be vital in predicting the likely impacts of ongoing climate change on reef fish demography. Here, we compare size-at-age and maximum body size of two common reef fish species (Lutjanus ehrenbergii and Pomacanthus maculosus) between the environmentally extreme Arabian/Persian Gulf (‘Arabian Gulf’) and adjacent comparably benign Oman Sea. Additionally, we use otolith increment width profiles to investigate the influence of temperature, salinity and productivity on the individual growth rates. Individuals of both species showed smaller size-at-age and lower maximum size in the Arabian Gulf compared …

Cloning Of Dreb Transcription Factor From Buffalo Grass, Qingchuan Yang, Xiaoyan Hu, Junmei Kang, Houcong Jin

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Salinity On Growth, Water Status, And Ion Accumulation In Two Cool‐Season Turfgrass Species, Ran Xu, M. Oka, H. Fujiyama

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.