Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Gpr171 Modulates Mood, Consummatory Behaviors, And Morphine Antinociception In A Sexually Dimorphic Pattern In Mice, Megan C. Raddatz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Receptors in the brain influence everything from complex behaviors related to mood, all the way to simple physiological functions like the way a person moves. Receptors are activated or inactivated by chemicals or hormones that the body produces or that are created to mimic the body’s natural chemicals. Of the hundreds of receptors in the brain, GPR171 is particularly interesting because new drugs have been created to activate or block the receptor, and are being proposed for the treatment of different disorders, particularly disorders related to pain. GPR171 has been shown to affect pain behaviors, eating, and mood-related behaviors, but …

Affective Liking Influences Reward Processing In Depression: A Computational Eeg Approach, Garima Singh

Psychology ETDs

Reinforcement learning (RL) enables agents to learn through interaction with their environment. This empowers individuals to optimize actions in complex and dynamic settings. The component of event related potential (ERP) termed as the Reward Positivity (RewP) evidently signifies a fundamental reward prediction error (RPE) associated with rewards. This characteristic implies that it represents a fundamental computational process in the assessment of RL. When a reward is particularly pleasurable or liked by an individual, it tends to elicit an amplified RewP signal, reflecting the heightened positive affect. RPE arises from disparities between anticipated and actual rewarding outcomes and is known to …

Assessment Of The Triple Reuptake Inhibitor Diclofensine: Effort-Based Decision-Making In A Rodent Model Of Motivational Dysfunction, Sofia Papanikolaou

Holster Scholar Projects

Serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most commonly prescribed antidepressant medications. Despite their popularity, they remain relatively ineffective at treating effort-related motivational symptoms of depression such as fatigue and anergia. Increasing research on triple reuptake inhibitors (TRIs) that target three neurotransmitters—dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine—has suggested that TRIs could have efficacy in targeting motivational dysfunction due to their dopaminergic effects. Previous research has shown that the dopamine depleting agent tetrabenazine can reliably induce motivational deficits in rats, as evidenced by a shift towards low-effort behavior in effort-based choice tasks, and provide a validated approach to creating a model of motivational dysfunction. …

Psychophysiological Effects Of Increasing Awareness Of Nondual Consciousness In Young Adults With Depression And Anxiety, Milena Braticevic

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Young adults increasingly suffer from anxiety and depression during the time of transition into adulthood. This research study examined the effects of increasing awareness of nondual consciousness in young adults who were experiencing various levels of anxiety and depression. The methodology was mixed-method and included four 1-hour group-based sessions over 4 weeks. Increasing awareness of nondual consciousness through educational, experiential, and behavioural components resulted in reduction in the average depression score from 19.4 (borderline clinical depression) to 10 (normal), and reduction in the average anxiety score from 12.7 (moderate anxiety) to 6.9 (mild). Participants reported increased mental, emotional, physical, and …

Role Of The Default-Mode Network During Narrative Integration In Major Depressive Disorder, Darren Ri-Sheng Liang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

How brain activity is synchronized across individuals during narrative comprehension has previously been characterized by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy and patient populations. To our knowledge, there has been limited investigation as to how it is affected by major depressive disorder (MDD). We addressed this issue with fMRI through examination of inter-subject synchronization in the default mode network (DMN), brain structures which have previously been implicated in MDD pathology. Twenty-two patients with MDD and 20 matched control participants listened to Intact versus Scrambled versions of an auditory narrative; these experimental conditions differed in the degree of temporal integration …

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 …

The Development And Evaluation Of Novel Da Transport Inhibitors And Their Effects On Effort-Related Motivation: A Review, Mukund Desibhatla

Honors Scholar Theses

Depression is a debilitating disorder that can cause motivational deficits such as psychomotor retardation, anergia, apathy, and fatigue. Recent research indicates that these motivational deficits, and potential pathways of therapeutic intervention, can be studied in animal models involving rats and mice. Treatments with the VMAT-2 inhibitor tetrabenazine (TBZ) and cytokine interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) can create a low-effort bias and impair effort-related motivation (Nunes et al. 2013, 2014). A number of high-affinity DA transport inhibitors such as d-amphetamine, methylphenidate, and cocaine can restore extracellular DA, albeit with the cost of undesirable effects such as high abuse liability. These observations have led researchers …

The Effects Of The Atypical Dopamine Uptake Inhibitor Ce-158 On Extracellular Dopamine In The Nucleus Accumbens, Julia Neri

Honors Scholar Theses

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is characterized by symptoms such as cognitive dysfunctions, inflammatory changes, and motivational symptoms such as amotivation, fatigue, and anergia. While depressed people are commonly treated by traditional antidepressants such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), previous studies have reported that SSRI medications do not treat fatigue and anergia symptoms well, and in some cases, can even worsen those symptoms. Subjects treated with dopamine (DA) uptake inhibitors, on the other hand, have been less likely to report symptoms of anergia and fatigue compared to those treated with SSRIs. Common DA uptake inhibitors such as methylphenidate and amphetamines, however, …

Influences Of Salvinorin A And Sex Differences On Depressive- And Anxiety-Like Behaviors In A Chronic Mild Stress Paradigm, Sarah Mitchell

Theses

Kappa opioid receptors are colocalized with dopamine receptors and are frequently associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and drug use and abuse. KOR antagonism has widely been considered anti-depressive and anxiolytic in animal models while agonism is pro-depressive and anxiogenic. However, recent findings suggest that SalvA, a natural kappa agonist derived from a plant in the mint family, can reduce depressive- and anxiety-like behavior in rats. The current study investigated the effects of chronic mild stress on behavior, attenuation by SalvA, and sex differences. 52 Long-Evans rats, 26 males and 26 females, were exposed to six weeks of CMS. Animals received …

Ketamine Pre-Exposure Does Not Influence Later-Life Responses To Reward-Related Stimuli In Female C57bl/6 Mice, Israel Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Preclinical work indicates that exposure to traditional antidepressant medications, in adolescent and adult female subjects, alters reward-related behavior later in life. In recent years, the anesthetic ketamine (KET), now used as a fast-acting antidepressant, has shown promising therapeutic efficacy for the management of depression. However, the potential long-term behavioral consequences of KET exposure across development have not been thoroughly assessed. Thus, to address this issue, we examined if KET exposure, during adolescence or early adulthood, results in enduring alterations in responsivity to the rewarding properties of sucrose and cocaine later in life. Specifically, female C57BL/6 mice were randomly assigned to …

The Influence Of Neural Reward Processing On Memory In Depression, Nathan M. Hager

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Theories and research suggest that depression involves impaired reward sensitivity and a deficit in memory for rewarding stimuli. Some researchers propose that this memory deficit may result from reduced neural reward sensitivity, which impairs the encoding of reward-related memories, but few studies have directly probed this connection. Such research may benefit from examining the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential (ERP) previously linked to reduced reward sensitivity in depression. Undergraduates with high or low self-reported depression completed a task in which they chose one of three doors, revealing a neutral word written in a color which indicated an outcome of …

Risk Profiles For Adolescent Internalizing Problems, Kelsey Elizabeth Hudson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Objective: Internalizing problems are commonly diagnosed during adolescence, and are associated with distress, impairment, and negative mental health outcomes in adulthood. Thus, there is a critical need to characterize adolescents who are at the highest risk for escalating to clinical levels of internalizing problems while extending current literature and incorporating both biological and environmental predictors. This study aimed to characterized risk profiles for fourteen-year-old adolescents who developed clinical levels of internalizing (High Internalizing [HI]) problems by age nineteen, using brain, genetic, personality, cognitive, life history, psychopathology, and demographic measures. The study also examined whether there were functional and structural brain …

Social Work Trauma Interventions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Kassie Baumann

Senior Honors Theses

According to Lynne Weilart (2013), in her article on the reasons why people seek out therapy, trauma is the number one reason people attend counseling. Many different trauma-informed approaches are designed specifically to address the consequences of trauma and to facilitate healing. Some of these approaches are as follows: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT);Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT); Trauma Systems Therapy (TST); Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP); and Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) (de Arellano, Danielson, Ko, & Sprauge, 2008). The effectiveness of each trauma intervention will be examined. DBT is one of these trauma interventions that is growing …

Quantifying The Spectrum Of Depression, Octavious Bishop

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Walden University

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

This is to certify that the doctoral dissertation by

Octavious Bishop

has been found to be complete and satisfactory in all respects,

and that any and all revisions required by

the review committee have been made.

Review Committee

Dr. Thomas Edman, Committee Chairperson, Psychology Faculty

Dr. Ricardo Thomas, Committee Member, Psychology Faculty

Dr. Joanna Bissell-Havran, University Reviewer, Psychology Faculty

Chief Academic Officer

Eric Riedel, Ph.D.

Quantifying the Spectrum of Depression

by

Octavious Bishop

MA, University of Texas at Austin, 2008

BS, University of Texas at Austin, 2001

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment …

Depression, Suicide, And Performance Monitoring: Identifying Neuroelectric Markers Of Suicidal Behavior, Kaylie Carbine, Michael Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

From 2000-2009, suicide mortality rates increased by 15% (Rockett, et al., 2012) and 98% of individuals who complete suicide have diagnosable psychopathology (Bertolote, Fleischmann, De Leo, & Wasserman, 2003). Individuals at risk for suicide exhibit cognitive impairments in decision-making and problem-solving abilities (Pollock & Williams, 2004; Jollant, et al., 2005). These cognitive deficits may be related to deficits in performance monitoring. Performance monitoring is the ability to continually assess behavior in order to make adjustments and improve performance. Performance monitoring is mediated by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is related to cognitive control abilities. Furthermore, suicidal thoughts and behaviors …

Associations Between Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis System Gene Variants And Cortisol Reactivity In Preschoolers: Main Effects And Gene-Environment Interactions, Haroon I. Sheikh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Exposure to stressful events during early development has consistently been shown to produce long lasting effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which may increase vulnerability to mood and anxiety disorders. Recently reported genetic association studies indicate that these disorders may be influenced, in part, by gene-environment interactions (GxE) involving polymorphisms within the corticotrophin-releasing hormone and monoaminergic system genes. However, little is known about how genetic variants and life stress work to shape children’s neuroendocrine reactivity and emerging symptoms. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to examine main effects of candidate genes and GxE on the neuroendocrine stress response and …

Salivary Cortisol, Psychological Stress And Depressive Symptoms Among Patients Undergoing Colon Cancer Screenings, Allyson Reid

Honors Scholar Theses

As the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, colon cancer has a high cure rate if detected early by a colonoscopy (U.S.

Cancer Statistics Working Group, 2007). However, more than 41 million at-risk Americans are not properly receiving colonoscopy screenings according to the recommendations of the Center for Disease Control. This study provides insight into the physiological and psychological benefits of the colonoscopy procedure over and above cancer detection and prevention. Thirty-six patients receiving colonoscopic screening at the University of Connecticut Health Center participated in this study. A questionnaire battery that assessed perceived stress, depressive symptoms, …