Behavioral Neurobiology Commons^™

Investigation Of Neurotransmitter’S Knockdown Effect On Drosophila Melanogaster Female Aggression, Asil N. El Galad

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) is a popular model organism in neurobiology. While aggression has been studied heavily in male drosophila, there's minimal research on aggression in female drosophila. Neurotransmitters influencing aggressive behaviour in female D. melanogaster are poorly understood. Various neurotransmitters such as dopamine, octopamine, and serotonin influence aggression in D. melanogaster Further investigation of the role of neurotransmitters on aggression is thus important. The purpose of our experiment is to observe the effect of the knockdown of dopamine, octopamine and glutamate on aggression in female D. melanogaster.

The Effects Of Prenatal Cannabis Exposure On The Basolateral Amygdala, Karen Kw Wong

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Clinical and preclinical studies indicate prenatal cannabis exposure (PCE) pathologically affects fetal brain development and may increase vulnerability to neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and mood/anxiety disorders. In review research from our lab suggests that fetal exposure to Δ9-THC sex-selectively impairs mesocorticolimbic (MCL) circuit function. However, there is a distinct lack of focus on PCE models on the BLA. The BLA plays a central role within the MCL where it directly interacts with the VTA, PFC and HIPP. Importantly, our model exhibits significant VTA hyperdopaminergic activity, and sex-specific alterations to PFC/HIPP glutamate firing, alongside region- and sex-specific changes in dopamine (DA), …

Assessing The Impact Of Lipopolysaccharide On Learning And Memory In Rats, Anahat Luthra

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The immune system and the central nervous system (CNS) have a bi-direction relationship, modulating one another.⁴ Proinflammatory cytokines released from CNS immune cells have an impact on cognitive processes such as learning and memory.¹ Liposaccharide (LPS), a cell wall component of Gram-negative bacteria, which is used to activate proinflammatory cytokine release has been found to impact learning and memory processes, such as in the anticipatory nausea paradigm (ANP).² Anticipatory nausea and vomiting is that which may occur before a chemotherapy treatment session begins in a patient who has had chemotherapy before. It is caused by triggers like …

Stimulus Duration Alters Temporal Sensitivity In Rat Model Of Audiovisual Perception, Juwairiya F. Ahmad

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The aim of this experiment was to investigate the effect of stimulus duration on the perceived temporal order judgement in Long Evans rats.

Optimization Of The Touchscreen-Based Visuomotor Conditional Learning Task In Mice, Oren Princz-Lebel, David I. Wasserman, Miguel Skirzewski, Penny A. Macdonald, Lisa M. Saksida, Tim J. Bussey

Western Research Forum

The translational gap between animal models and clinical trials is a longstanding, yet largely unresolved, limitation in the study of cognition. This discrepancy is largely due to the differences in how cognition is assessed in animal models compared to those in clinical populations. In the stimulus-response (S-R) learning literature, for example, the techniques used to assess the acquisition of habitual behaviour differ greatly across species, leading to poor cross-species translation and often conflicting results. As a result, we set out to optimize a S-R learning task in mice using the touchscreen-based operant technologies. Similar to human studies, this touchscreen technique …

P32. Altered Sensory Processing In Response To Novel Dreadd-Induced Inactivation Of Gaba In Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus, Niveen Fulcher

Western Research Forum

Niveen Fulcher¹, Cleusa De Oliveira², & Susanne Schmid^1,2

¹Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario

²Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario

Altered sensory processing in response to novel DREADD-induced inactivation of GABA in pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus

Background: Sensory processing deficits are associated with certain psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Sensory filtering and sensorimotor gating are evolutionarily conserved preattentive responses that filter and block redundant sensory stimuli that would otherwise overwhelm our brains. To date, underlying mechanisms of these deficits are undefined. Prepulse …

P35. Investigating The Effect Of Maternal Immune Activation On Sensory Filtering, Social Behaviour And Attention, Faraj Haddad

Western Research Forum

Background

Altered brain development is associated with many neuropsychiatric disorders like Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia. Environmental insults can interfere with neurodevelopment, and a prominent example is maternal infection during pregnancy. Epidemiological studies show that children born to mothers who were infected during pregnancy display a higher risk of developing ASD and schizophrenia, and this effect is mainly due to the maternal immune response. Polyinosinic-polycytidilic acid (Poly I:C) is a double stranded RNA molecule that mimics viral markers and elicits an immune response. When injected in pregnant rodents, this model produces offspring that exhibit core symptoms of ASD and …