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Full-Text Articles in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
Sex Differences In Mood And Anxiety-Related Outcomes In Response To Adolescent Nicotine Exposure, Tsun Hay Jason Ng
Sex Differences In Mood And Anxiety-Related Outcomes In Response To Adolescent Nicotine Exposure, Tsun Hay Jason Ng
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
Nicotine dependence is causally linked to increased risk of mood/anxiety disorders in later life. Females are reported to experience a higher prevalence of anxiety/depressive disorders and challenges in smoking cessation therapies, suggesting a potential sex-specific response to nicotine exposure and mood/anxiety disorder risk. However, pre-clinical evidence of sex-specific responses to adolescent nicotine exposure is unclear. Thus, to determine any sex differences in anxiety/depressive-related outcomes, adolescent male and female Sprague Dawley rats received nicotine (0.4 mg/kg; 3x daily) or saline injections for 10 consecutive days, followed by behavioural testing, in-vivo electrophysiology and Western Blot analyses. Our results revealed that adolescent nicotine …
Role Of Nucleus Accumbens Dopamine Receptor Signaling In The Suppression Of Punished Reward Seeking, Grace M. Joyner, Anna Caroline Toburen
Role Of Nucleus Accumbens Dopamine Receptor Signaling In The Suppression Of Punished Reward Seeking, Grace M. Joyner, Anna Caroline Toburen
Senior Theses
Previous studies have shown that within the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a brain region associated with motivation and reinforcement learning, activity of neurons expressing the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R neurons) act as a “break” on risky behavior associated with negative outcomes. Moreover, when these neurons are stimulated, rats were found to become more risk averse. However, the impact of dopamine signaling through NAc D2R neurons in risk avoidance is still unclear. To further explore the role of NAc dopamine signaling in punished reward-seeking, we tested rats in a novel punished food-seeking paradigm in which subjects are trained to choose between a …
The Role Of Dopamine In Decision Making Processes In Drosophila Melanogaster, Michelle C. Bowers
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 …
Structure-Activity Relationship Studies Of Synthetic Cathinones And Related Agents, Rachel A. Davies
Structure-Activity Relationship Studies Of Synthetic Cathinones And Related Agents, Rachel A. Davies
Theses and Dissertations
Synthetic cathinones and related agents represent an international drug abuse problem, and at the same time an important class of clinically useful compounds. Structure-activity relationship studies are needed to elucidate molecular features underlying the pharmacology of these agents. Illicit methcathinone (i.e., MCAT), the prototype of the synthetic cathinone class, exists as a racemic mixture. Though the differences in potency and target selectivity between the positional and optical isomers of synthetic cathinones and related agents have been demonstrated to have important implications for abuse and therapeutic potential, the two MCAT isomers have never been directly compared at their molecular targets: the …