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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Dendritic Spine Density And Morphology In The Dorsolateral Striatum Following A High Fat Diet, Tikva Nabatian
Dendritic Spine Density And Morphology In The Dorsolateral Striatum Following A High Fat Diet, Tikva Nabatian
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Obesity rates have been dramatically rising in recent years and in 2017-2018 more than 42% of adults in the United States were obese. Obesity is associated with numerous health problems, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, insulin resistance, and type II diabetes. The prevalence of highly palatable and calorically dense foods high in fats and sugars is a significant factor in the increase in obesity rates. Many suggest that palatable food affects the brain in ways similar to drugs of abuse, reinforcing the consumption of highly palatable foods in the same way drugs reinforce drug use. While numerous weight loss programs and …
Dietary Regulation Of Silent Synapses In The Dorsolateral Striatum, Allison M. Meyers
Dietary Regulation Of Silent Synapses In The Dorsolateral Striatum, Allison M. Meyers
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Obesity and drugs of abuse share overlapping neural circuits and behaviors. Cravings for drugs of abuse increase during abstinence, a phenomenon known as incubation. In obesity, increased craving is observed in individuals during dieting. Diets often fail, with return to- or increase above- original weight. The extent to which this reflects an incubation phenomenon has not been carefully examined. One mechanism underlying incubation is the reemergence of a developmental mechanism called silent synapses. Silent synapses are 'temporary' synapses that are important for remodeling brain circuits. They are prevalent during early development but largely disappear by adulthood. Drugs of abuse increase …
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 …