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Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience

Behavioural And Molecular Consequences Of Postnatal Stress In A Mouse Model Of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Bonnie Alberry Jan 2020

Behavioural And Molecular Consequences Of Postnatal Stress In A Mouse Model Of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Bonnie Alberry

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are caused by prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and affect 1‑5% of the North American population. Children born with FASD often face maternal separation throughout childhood. How this early life stress (ELS) affects the severity of FASD-related deficits is poorly understood. Using a mouse model, this dissertation establishes that behavioural deficits accumulate following prenatal alcohol exposure and early life stress, assessed using tests for activity, anxiety-like behaviour as well as learning and memory. Hippocampal gene expression was evaluated using RNA-seq followed by clustering of expression profiles through weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). A set of …


Amelioration Of Prenatal Alcohol Effects By Environmental Enrichment In A Mouse Model Of Fasd, Aniruddho Chokroborty-Hoque Aug 2017

Amelioration Of Prenatal Alcohol Effects By Environmental Enrichment In A Mouse Model Of Fasd, Aniruddho Chokroborty-Hoque

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy results in a spectrum of behavioural and cognitive deficits collectively known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Currently, little is know about if and how the external environment may modulate these deficits. I have used C57BL/6 mice to study this interaction between prenatal alcohol exposure and the postnatal environment. Alcohol exposure during synaptogenesis produces high levels of anxiety-like traits and decreased memory performance. Alcohol-exposed mice (and matched unexposed controls) were put in 'environmentally-enriched' conditions of voluntary exercise, physical activities and cognitive stimulation to ascertain the effects of a positive postnatal environment. The results show that …


Investigation Of Sox9 Ablation On Neural Stem Cell Behaviour After Spinal Cord Injury, Stephen Mcdonald Oct 2013

Investigation Of Sox9 Ablation On Neural Stem Cell Behaviour After Spinal Cord Injury, Stephen Mcdonald

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

After spinal cord injury neural stem cells are activated to proliferate and differentiate primarily into astrocytes, but are unable to replace lost neurons or aid in neurological recovery. Recent research shows that the transcription factor Sox9 promotes gliogenesis while inhibiting neurogenesis, and that Sox9 ablation causes improved recovery after spinal cord injury. The purpose of this study was to determine how Sox9 ablation alters neural stem cell behaviour after spinal cord injury and whether it leads to neurological improvements. We used BrdU and YFP to label and track neural stem cells and a neural stem cell-specific Sox9 knockout mouse model …