Medical Neurobiology Commons^™

The Benefits Of Astaxanthin To Improve Pain Relief In Patients With Painful Diabetic Neuropathy: An Open-Label, Randomized Controlled Trial, Rizaldy Taslim Pinzon, Mary Rose Angelina Budi Harsana

Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research

Treatment of diabetic neuropathy is still carried out by providing symptomatic therapy, which only improves ± 50% of the total symptoms felt by patients, but does not tackle the underlying causes of the disease. Astaxanthin is a potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-diabetic carotenoid that could be an additional treatment option. We aimed to measure the effectiveness of administering astaxanthin as an additional therapy to improve the impact of pain and discomfort experienced daily by diabetes mellitus patients with painful diabetic neuropathy. We conducted a randomized experimental study with an open label design of 36 patients who had been diagnosed with …

Designs And Outcomes Of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Tms) And Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Rtms) Circuits, Daniel Senda

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis reports the design and outcomes of several circuits intended for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) research. In simple terms, TMS circuits are composed of four main blocks: high voltage power source, energy storage bank, control switch, and coil. Each one of these blocks has characteristics that influence how well the circuit will perform for TMS procedures. A successful TMS research circuit must have the ability to emit controlled electromagnetic pulses through a coil connected to it. For the first block, voltages ranging from 50 V to 2 kV were used. In the second …

Axon Initial Segment Morphology Across Typical Cortical Development And In Mouse Models Of Neurodevelopmental Disorders With A High Incidence Of Epilepsy, Rachel Ali Rodriguez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are commonly associated with a high incidence of epileptic seizures which result from excessive firing of neurons. The axon initial segment (AIS) is a neuronal compartment essential for the control of activity patterns of neurons. The AIS undergoes important modifications during development, but the molecular mechanisms that affect the development, morphology, and protein composition of the AIS are still not well understood. We examined AIS morphology of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) pyramidal neurons in wildtype mice across development and in two mouse models of NDDs. Results indicate restructurings at the AIS during typical development, some of which …

Multiple Approaches To Auditory Rhythm: Development Of Sustained Musical Beat And The Relation To Language, Development Of Rhythmic Categories Via Iterated Production, And A Meta-Analytic Study Of Neural Entrainment To Beat, Karli Marie Nave

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Rhythm is ubiquitous to human communication, coordination, and experience of music. In this dissertation, I address three empirical questions through three different methodologies, all of which contribute to the growing body of literature on human auditory rhythm processing. In Chapter 2, I present a registered report detailing the results of independent conceptual replications of Nozaradan, Peretz, Missal, & Mouraux (2011), all using the same vetted protocol. Listeners performed the same tasks as in Nozaradan et al. (2011), with the addition of behavioral measures of perception. In neuroscience, neural correlates to musical beat perception have been identified, yet little to no …

Dimensionality Reduction For Classification Of Object Weight From Electromyography, Elnaz Lashgari, Uri Maoz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Electromyography (EMG) is a simple, non-invasive, and cost-effective technology for measuring muscle activity. However, multi-muscle EMG is also a noisy, complex, and high-dimensional signal. It has nevertheless been widely used in a host of human-machine-interface applications (electrical wheelchairs, virtual computer mice, prosthesis, robotic fingers, etc.) and, in particular, to measure the reach-and-grasp motions of the human hand. Here, we developed an automated pipeline to predict object weight in a reach-grasp-lift task from an open dataset, relying only on EMG data. In doing so, we shifted the focus from manual feature-engineering to automated feature-extraction by using pre-processed EMG signals and thus …

Medical Schools Ignore The Nature Of Consciousness At Great Cost, Anoop Kumar

Journal of Wellness

The essential question of the relationship between consciousness and matter is ignored in medical school curricula, leading to a machine-like view of the human being that contributes to physician burnout and intellectual dissatisfaction. The evidence suggesting that the brain may not be the seat of consciousness is generally ignored to preserve the worldview of the primacy of matter. By investigating new frameworks detailing the nature of consciousness at different levels of hierarchy, we can bring intellectual rigor to a once opaque subject that supports a fundamental reality about our experience: We are human beings, not only human bodies.

The Effects Of Mapk Signaling On The Development Of Cerebellar Granule Cells, Kerry Morgan

Honors Scholar Theses

The granule cells are the most abundant neuronal type in the human brain. Rapid proliferation of granule cell progenitors results in dramatic expansion and folding of the cerebellar cortex during postnatal development. Mis-regulation of this proliferation process causes medulloblastoma, the most prevalent childhood brain tumor. In the developing cerebellum, granule cells are derived from Atoh1-expressing cells, which arise from the upper rhombic lip (the interface between the roof plate and neuroepithelium). In addition to granule cells, the Atoh1 lineage also gives rise to different types of neurons including cerebellar nuclei neurons. In the current study, I have investigated the …

Development Of A Novel Cognitive-Motor Dual Task Assessment Battery In Neurodegenerative Disease, Jason Longhurst

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Automaticity --- the ability to perform a task with directing attentional resources to its completion --- is commonly reduced among individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. These automaticity deficits result in impaired functional and daily activities and are sensitive to subtle, subclinical impairments. However, current measurement of automaticity by dual task paradigms is methodologically limited. In order to gain insight into the current state of the literature regarding cognitive-motor interference in symptomatic and prodromal neurodegenerative disease, the author of this dissertation conducted a scoping review (Chapter 1). To address the methodological limitations of current measurement of automaticity, a new measurement tool was …

Long-Term Impacts Of Acute Stressor Exposure On Locus Coeruleus Function And Anxiety-Like Behavior In Rats, Olga Borodovitsyna

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Stress is a physiological state characterized by behavioral arousal that occurs during exposure to harmful or threatening stimuli, and usually facilitates an adaptive behavioral response. The persistence of stress sometimes causes it to become maladaptive, potentially contributing to disease development, including physiological complications with altered neuroendocrine signaling and impaired function of organ systems, and psychological conditions including depression and anxiety. Anxiety disorders in particular are associated with a history of stress and are the most common class of mental disorders, with a lifetime prevalence of 33.7% in the general population. The locus coeruleus (LC) is a major node in the …

Open Neuroscience Initiative, Austin Lim

College of Science and Health Full Text Publications

The Open Neuroscience Initiative is a free-to-use textbook

This project began as a means to overcoming the financial burden that face undergraduate neuroscience students when buying textbooks. By compiling and writing a completely free-to-access textbook that covers the foundations of a typical college introduction to neuroscience course, students would have one less obstacle to overcome in their educational career, allowing them to focus their valuable time and attention on learning rather than finances. To make this project a reality, I began with a humble tweet in May 2019 that managed to gain a tiny bit of traction among the neuroscience …

Protocadherin-19 Expression And Function In Vertebrate Brain Review, Makana Mcguire

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For this project, a systematic review will be conducted on published studies on protocadherin-19 expression and function in vertebrate central nervous system development in the last 10 years. Protocadherin-19 (pcdh19) is a member of the cadherin superfamily. Cadherins are calcium-dependent cell adhesion molecules show to play important roles in vertebrate tissue development including the formation of the central nervous system. Understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the function of pcdh19 will help aid in understanding disease(s) caused by malfunction of this molecule, and lead to potential strategies for treatment. Data will be collected via online search of databases. The project …

Genus Applications For Alzheimer's Disease Pathology, Whitney L Carter

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

Estimates vary, but it is thought that 5.5 million Americans age 60 and up may be living with Alzheimer’s diseases (AD). AD is the most common type of dementia and is characterized by a decline in episodic memories, long-term memory, language, attention, and personality changes. The first symptoms can vary, but for most people memory is the first capacity to become impaired. However, symptoms can also be a decline in non-memory aspects of cognition like work-finding, vision/spatial issues, and impaired reasoning or judgement. AD is identified mainly by two histopathological features: extracellular plague of amyloid-beta protein and intracellular neuronal tangles …