Behavioral Neurobiology Commons^™

Vapourized Cannabis Extract Administration Impairs Memory And Alters Neural Activity In Laboratory Rats, Megan Chladny

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Although people have smoked cannabis for millennia, administration of cannabis by heating the dried plant material or distilled extracts to a temperature just below the combustion point (i.e., vapourization or "vaping") has rapidly increased over the past few years (Javadi-Payder, Cole, and Taffe, 2018; Manwell, Charchoglyan, Brewer, Matthews, Heipel, and Mallet, 2014). Conversely, most of the cannabinoid research using rodent models has used parenteral routes of administration to examine the effects of purified cannabis extracts such as ∆⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), making it difficult to directly compare laboratory research to human drug use. Building on previous studies showing that THC …

Calcium Imaging Of Central Amygdala Activity After Fentanyl Escalation, Samantha Malone

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Evidence suggests that rats given long access (LgA) sessions to self-administer (SA) opioids escalate their intake, while also showing greater withdrawal severity and drug-induced reinstatement compared to rats maintained on short access (ShA) daily SA sessions. Little is known about the neural changes that occur during opioid escalation that may impact withdrawal and relapse. Past work examining opioid SA using ShA sessions in rodents has identified the central amygdala (CeA) as an area of interest that becomes hyperactive in acute withdrawal and may be involved in the incubation of craving that occurs after protracted withdrawal. However, these studies have not …

Effects Of Development On Hpa Function Following Pubertal Stress, Brittany D. Elliott

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

For women, two of the greatest risk factors for affective disorders are adversity experienced during puberty and later becoming pregnant. We have created a translationally relevant mouse model where we address these complex risk factors. Previously, we discovered that pregnant mice (dams) that experienced chronic variable stress (CVS) during puberty display a blunted hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response when exposed to an acute stressor. Interestingly, this alteration only first becomes apparent during pregnancy, which is a sensitive period for these effects due to normative neuroendocrine changes. Further investigation of the mechanisms underlying this dysfunction revealed altered gene expression in the paraventricular nucleus …

Behavioral Effects And Neurobiological Mechanisms Of 3-Aminobenzimide In A Rodent Model Of Chronic Psychological Stress, Liza Wills

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability worldwide, with a lifetime prevalence rate of approximately 20%. Inadequate pharmacological treatment methods for MDD are a significant debilitating factor. Patient estimates suggest that the treatment resistance rate for pharmacological interventions is over 30%. Postmortem analyses of human tissue of individuals diagnosed with MDD have shown an increase in Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP-1) mRNA gene expression in prefrontal cortical white matter when compared to psychiatrically normal brain tissue. In order to further investigate this issue, the present study used the social defeat stress/chronic unpredictable stress (SDS + CUS) rodent …

Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Honors Papers

Classical conditioning has been a fundamental concept and practice throughout the history of psychology. While classical conditioning traditionally seeks to elicit target behaviors in correlation to specific stimuli, we sought to do the same with cognitive states in place of behaviors. Specifically, we wanted to determine the effectiveness of conditioning states of cognitive arousal in human participants in conjunction with cues presented in a designed learning task. We designed a cognitive task specifically for this research, referred to as “the Tone Pitching Task”, which utilized a combination of working memory and mental processing in order to elicit cognitive arousal and …

The Effects Of D2 Receptor Modulation On Locomotor Development In Danio Rerio, Isaiah Thomas Mcroberts

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This study utilized a novel design to investigate the sensitivity of D2 dopamine receptors to modulating compounds through multiple exposures over early development of zebrafish larvae. Zebrafish were dosed for 30 minutes from 5-8 days post fertilization (dpf) with 16µ/mol of either a D2 antagonist, haloperidol, or a D2 agonist, quinpirole hydrochloride. Two other groups were then dosed with these compounds from 9-12dpf. The effects of D2 receptor modulation were measured by analyzing motor activity on measures of movement distance, frequency, and velocity. Results indicated that larvae dosed with haloperidol on 5dpf had increased activity after the first dosage, but …

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 …

Circuits Underlying Serotonin Mediated Sex Differences In Fear Learning, Rebecca Ravenelle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a trauma-related disorder characterized by intense fearful memory formation. Women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD, indicating there may be sex differences in the underlying neural circuits. Given that serotonin (5-HT) dysfunction is implicated in PTSD, and 5-HT modulates fear learning, we investigated whether there are sex differences in the modulation of fear learning by 5-HT. We administered the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) citalopram (20mg/kg or 10m/kg, i.p.) once to male and female mice prior to auditory fear conditioning and tested the effects on fear memory the next day. We found …

Attentional Dysfunction In Schizophrenia: The Effects Of Dual Orexin Receptor Blockade On An Nmda Receptor Hypofunction Model, Paige Little

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hypofunctionality at the N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor (NMDAR) is a commonly used model of the neurodevelopmental disorder schizophrenia due to the complex circuitry changes that follow NMDAR blockade. While these animal models are very popular for modeling the cognitive deficits seen in schizophrenia, actual treatments for this disorder remain sparse. Orexins (hypocretins) are neuropeptides that are capable of modulating activity along pathways relevant to attention, but are rarely tested for their efficacy in attenuating attentional dysfunction. This study was conducted to determine if systemic administration of the dual orexin receptor antagonist filorexant (MK-6096) was able to attenuate sustained attentional dysfunction induced …

Developmental Influences On The Initial Subjective Rewarding Effects Of Etoh, Madison Waldron

Master’s Theses

The present studies were aimed to better understand developmental contributions to the risk for disordered drinking, and facilitate the long-term goal of developing effective interventions for individuals at high risk for alcohol use disorders. Experiment 1 assessed the effect of adolescent pre-exposure to ethanol on adult place preference, as well as, sex- and beta-endorphin(bE)-related contributions. Adolescent C57BL/6J and bE deficient mice were injected with 1.5g/kg of ethanol or saline and put back into their home cages. At the time of adulthood, we employed a single-exposure conditioned place preference paradigm (SE-CPP) to investigate the impact of preexposure on the initial subjective …

The Inevitability Of Collision: Creating Empathy Through Fiction, Danielle Beckman

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

While the stigma for mental illnesses has greatly declined in the last decade, there is still a disconnect between individuals without neurological illnesses and those with neurological illnesses, especially those that cause individuals to lose contact with reality. The goal of this interdisciplinary paper is to create empathy for these individuals, specifically people with schizophrenia, Alzheimer disease, and post-traumatic amnesia. Through a collection of four stories told from the perspective of these unreliable narrators, I used fiction writing techniques from the field of cognitive literary studies such as gapping and defamiliarization to create more empathy in the reader. In reading …

Pharmacokinetics And Reward-Related Behaviors Of Ethanol In Male And Female Japanese Quail (Coturnix Japonica), Shannon Eaton

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Ethanol is one of the most widely used and abused drugs. Problem use is associated with many different health problems and the economic burden is in the billions of dollars. Additionally, many people have difficulty controlling their ethanol consumption and about 5% of adults end up with an alcohol use disorder (AUD). Many people with an AUD often find themselves in a cycle of binge, remission, and relapse.

Following ethanol consumption ethanol enters the bloodstream from the small intestine where it gets distributed to peripheral tissues. Ethanol in the bloodstream is cleared from the system by the liver. The primary …

Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Of Adverse Trauma Outcomes In Emerging Adulthood, Olena Kleshchova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Exposure to traumatic stress and adversity during the formative years of development can have adverse effects on mental health, neuroendocrine stress system function, and the brain, that persist into adulthood. One candidate mechanism that might confer vulnerability to enduring adverse outcomes of early life trauma is disruption of normal brain maturation. As the brain matures, functional interactions among brain regions change until the functional brain architecture (i.e., the functional connectome) reaches a mature state in adulthood. Given that different neural circuits have distinct developmental trajectories and sensitive periods, traumatic stress at a given point in development might have …

The Role Of Dopamine In Decision Making Processes In Drosophila Melanogaster, Michelle C. Bowers

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Understanding the neural processes that mediate decision making is a relatively new field of investigation in the scientific community. With the ultimate goal of understanding how humans decide between one path and another, simpler models such as Drosophila Melanogaster, the common fruit fly, are often utilized as a way of determining the neural circuits involved in these decision-making processes. One of the most important decisions flies make is the decision of where to lay their eggs (oviposit). Choosing the proper substrate upon which to lay eggs is a crucial decision that can ultimately impact their fecundity. This paper investigates the …

Sedative And Neurotoxic Properties Of Brexanolone Compared To Midazolam In The Developing Rodent Brain, Jacob Huffman

Dissertations

The developing brain is susceptible to extensive neurotoxicity following exposure to sedative/anesthetic drugs (SADs). Every year hundreds of thousands of children around the world are exposed to SADs with no viable non-neurotoxic agents approved for clinical use. Allopregnanolone (AlloP) has well-established sedative effects in adults and neonates. AlloP and many SADs produce sedation/anesthesia through allosteric modulation of GABA_A receptors, which is one of two principal mechanisms behind SAD-induced neurotoxicity. Evidence suggests AlloP has the unique capacity to regulate key apoptotic factors in adults and is widely involved with critical stages of neurodevelopment, indicating this neurosteroid might serve as a …

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 …

Experience-Dependent Changes In Nucleus Accumbens Activity Predict Cued Approach Learning: Contribution Of Nmda Receptors, Mercedes Vega Villar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Animals learn associations between environmental cues and the natural rewards they predict (e.g., food, water, sex). As a result, reward-predictive cues come to trigger vigorous reward-seeking responses. Many neurons in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) become excited upon presentation of an already-learned reward-predictive cue. These NAc responses encode the motivational value of the cue and are necessary for the expression of the subsequent approach behavior. However, the precise temporal relationship between the emergence of cue-evoked excitations in the NAc and the acquisition of cued approach behavior remains unknown. In Experiment 1, NAc activity was recorded as rats learned to approach a …

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 …

Assessing A Two-Hit Model Of Schizophrenia: Prenatal Choline Deficiency And Induced Hypofunction Of Nmda Receptors In Male And Female Long Evans Rats, Samuel Gray, Samuel W. Gray

Honors Theses

Choline is an essential dietary nutrient essential to the development and function of the central nervous system. Prenatal choline deficiency alters hippocampal development as well as acetylcholine metabolism, leading to cognitive impairments and attentional and sensory processing deficits into adulthood. MK-801 is an NMDA receptor antagonist frequently used in rodent models of neuropsychiatric conditions, particularly schizophrenia. Acutely and sub- chronically, it causes hyperlocomotion and social withdrawal. One primary goal of the present study were to investigate prenatal choline deficiency induces a biological vulnerability to the motor deficits, anhedonia, and social impairment precipitated by low-dose sub-chronic MK-801 administration in adulthood. Another …

Emotion Processing Deficits In Psychopathy: Does Cueing To Relevant Facial Features Increase Cognitive And Emotional Empathy?, Shawn E. Fagan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a multifaceted disorder characterized by a lack of cognitive and emotional empathy. The traditional model of psychopathy divides the disorder into two factors: Factor 1 consists of the interpersonal and affective traits of psychopathy while Factor 2 measures antisocial behaviors and lifestyle choices. The attention-to-the-eyes hypothesis argues that psychopathic individuals have impaired emotion recognition (specifically for fear) due to deficits in orienting attention to salient facial features like the eyes. Psychopathic individuals also display blunted autonomic responding to emotional stimuli, though whether this is due to attention-orienting deficits remains to be clarified. The present project investigated whether empathy-related …

The Role Of The Direct And Indirect Basal Ganglia Pathways In The Learning, Performance, And Goal-Directed Control Of Action Sequences, Eric Garr

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Animals engage in intricately woven action sequences that are constructed from trial-and-error learning, but the mechanisms by which the brain links together individual actions which are later recalled as fluid chains of behavior are not fully understood. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the learning and goal-directed control of action sequences in rats. Experiment 1 addresses a question that comes out of a reinforcement learning model of action sequencing: how does the extent of training change how the performance of an action sequence is impacted by reward devaluation. The data show that action sequences remain goal-directed overall regardless …

Murine Genetic Variance In Sugar And Fat-Conditioned Flavor Preferences: Roles Of Dopamine, Opioid And Nmda Receptors And Nutritive Sensing, Tamar T. Kraft

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As obesity and diabetes have emerged as a severe public health crisis, understanding the mechanisms underlying the consumption of sugars and fats has become a topic of vigorous study. From a biological standpoint, genetic dispositions, neurochemical and hormonal influences, and predetermined orosensory and postingestive signals that modulate the hunger and satiety process may govern physiological aspects of the obesity puzzle. In addition to an innate appetite and attraction for simple carbohydrates and fats, learning plays an important role in modulating preferences for sugar- and fat-rich foods in rodents, including inbred mouse strains. Marked genetic variance has been observed among murine …

Characterization Of Ethanol-Related Phenotypic Differences Between C57bl/6j And C57bl/6nj Substrains: Role Of Cyfip2?, Matthew C. Hartmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The C57BL/6 (B6) mouse is the most commonly used inbred strain in biomedical research, and has served as the basis for various large-scale genetic and genomic projects. Although the parental substrain, C57BL/6J (B6J), originated at The Jackson Laboratory, isolated breeding colonies are now maintained at numerous sites. This separation has resulted in genetic drift that has led to the emergence of phenotypic differences among these colonies. For instance, B6J mice display higher levels of voluntary ethanol consumption and increased locomotor responses to psychostimulants, relative to C57BL/6N mice (B6N). Initial progress has been made in elucidating the genetic bases of these …

The Effects Of Two Novel Anti-Inflammatory Compounds On Prepulse Inhibition And Neural Microglia Cell Activation In A Rodent Model Of Schizophrenia, Heath W. Shelton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies have shown elevated neuroinflammation in a large subset of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. A pro-inflammatory cytokine, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), has been directly linked to this neuroinflammation. This study examined the effects of two TNFα modulators (PD2024 and PD340) produced by our collaborators at P2D Bioscience, Inc., to alleviate auditory sensorimotor gating deficits and reduce microglial cell activation present in the polyinosinic:polycytidylic (Poly I:C) rodent model of schizophrenia. Auditory sensorimotor gating was assessed using prepulse inhibition and microglial activation was examined and quantified using immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy, respectively. Both PD2024 and PD340 alleviated auditory sensorimotor gating deficits …

Redefining Burnout: Exploring Common Conceptualizations And The Neurophysiology Of Chronic Stress To Establish An Integrated Allostatic Model, Danny A. Guzzi

Dissertations

Burnout is a widely researched stress-related phenomenon associated with numerous adverse outcomes for employees and organizations. Unfortunately, burnout is not well understood and research to this point has been flawed due to a lack of consensus on the definition, dimensionality, and context of the construct. Prevalent conceptualizations of burnout have been criticized for being arbitrarily developed without solid theoretical foundation and for failing to clearly distinguish burnout from depression or other work-related conditions such as compassion fatigue, secondary traumatization, and vicarious traumatization. The current project first examines relevant literature to identify commonalities among prevalent burnout conceptualizations. Then relevant stress research …

Contextually Modulated Avoidance Behavior In Rats Post-Pavlovian Extinction, Lauren Branigan

Theses and Dissertations

The following study sought to examine the psychological substrates of renewal (e.g.., context dependent extinction processes) for conditioned avoidance behaviors in rats. Using signaled active avoidance conditioning, rats acquired two-way shuttle responding, to two different auditory stimuli. These behaviors were then extinguished through exposure to the auditory stimuli where shuttling behavior was now without consequence. Subjects were then tested for renewal of avoidance in three distinct renewal sequences (e.g., ABA vs ABB, AAB vs AAA, and ABC vs ABB) in three separate groups of rats. It was found that subjects showed more responding to a stimulus presented outside of its …

Relations Among Maternal And Paternal Behavior And Children's Stress Biology, S.K. Jiaming Lin, Stacey N. Doan, John Milton

Scripps Senior Theses

Parenting behavior has been shown to have a wide range of effects, influencing children’s psychological and biological stress outcomes. Most research focuses on maternal parenting behaviors, with few studies observing the effects of paternal behaviors or the influence of both parents on their children. In this study, the relationship between maternal and paternal parenting behaviors was examined in its association to predict children’s cortisol levels. Cultural differences in parenting styles was also observed. American (N=86) and Chinese (N=97) families participated in the study, with parents reporting their behaviors. Children’s cortisol was collected during a stressor task and correlational analysis was …

Dietary Curcumin Promotes Resilience To Chronic Social Defeat Stress In A Highly Susceptible Mouse Strain, Antonio V. Aubry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chronic exposure to stress is a risk factor for the development of major depression and post traumatic stress disorder in humans and induces depressive- and anxiety-like phenotypes in rodents. However, there are few pharmacological interventions available that effectively treat maladaptive responses to chronic stress in the clinical setting. One therapeutic agent that has recently shown promise in treating psychiatric disorders is curcumin, a yellow-pigmented polyphenol compound found in the turmeric plant. Curcumin has been shown to prevent the development of stressed-induced depressive-like behavior in rodents and reduce symptoms of depression in clinically diagnosed patients. In this dissertation, I investigated whether …

Curcumin Inhibits The Ikk:Nf-Kappa B Pathway In Neural Fear Circuits, Miguel A. Briones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study of how the brain acquires fearful memories has attracted considerable experimental attention, due in part to the promise of discovering novel therapeutic approaches for psychiatric disorders that are characterized by unusually strong and persistent traumatic memories. In recent years, extensive research has focused on studying the neural and molecular mechanisms by which fear memories are acquired, stored, and retrieved in the brain. Once acquired, fear memories may be attenuated using one of 2 procedures: 1) fear extinction, which involves repeated presentation of the fear-arousing stimulus in the absence of an aversive consequence, or 2) interference with the reconsolidation …

Examining The Associative Learning And Accumbal Dopaminergic Mechanisms Of Caffeine Reinforcement, Curtis Bradley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive substance in the world, and most caffeine consumption in coffee and energy drinks is intended to produce a psychoactive effect. However, caffeine is not a primary reinforcer in preclinical paradigms – non-human species do not reliably take the drug to produce a psychoactive effect. However, caffeine is a ‘reinforcement enhancer’ in preclinical models; the effects of caffeine increase the motivation to obtain other non-drug reinforcers. The overall goal of this project was to determine if these reinforcement enhancing effects of caffeine could promote caffeine self-administration and to subsequently investigate the behavioral and neurochemical underpinnings …