Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Chronic Stress On Anxiety-Like Behavior And Fear Learning In The Tgf344-Ad Rat Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Samuel James Bouquin

Psychology ETDs

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder that leads to severe cognitive and functional impairments. Many AD patients also exhibit neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) such as anxiety and prior to the clinical diagnosis of dementia. The prodromal manifestation of NPS is highly prevalent among patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and the co-occurrence of preclinical NPS and MCI is associated with an increased risk of developing AD. Prolonged or repeated exposure to stress can result in behavioral disturbances (e.g., anxiety) and accelerated global cognitive decline. Importantly, AD patients exhibit altered stress systems and AD-related neuropathology has been linked to …

Predictors Of Recovery In Advocacy-Based Refugee Treatment Outcome: The Role Of Prior Traumatic Experiences And Current Chronic Stressors, Meredith A. Blackwell

Psychology ETDs

Refugees are at an increased vulnerability to mental health disorders compared to citizens of wealthier nations. The present study looks at the symptom trajectories of 290 refugees in a psychosocial community-based participatory intervention. A three-level generalized linear mixed model examined the predictive impact of exposure to trauma and chronic stress at baseline on posttraumatic stress and mood symptoms over time. Results showed that only higher chronic stress at baseline was associated with a steeper decrease in both PTSD and mood scores, but these effects differed by nationality. However, with chronic stress entered as a time-varying covariate instead only African participants …

Antagonizing Serotonin 2a (5-Ht2a) Receptors Attenuates Methamphetamine-Induced Reward And Blocks Methamphetamine-Induced Anxiety-Like Behaviors In Adult Male Rats, John T. Madden

Psychology ETDs

Methamphetamine (Meth) is a highly addictive and widely abused psychostimulant. Research indicates that the selective 5-HT_2A receptor antagonist M100907 attenuates several psychostimulant-induced behaviors, including conditioned place preference (CPP). However, these findings have not yet been extended to Meth. The present study investigated the effects of M100907 on the acquisition of Meth-CPP and Meth-induced anxiety.

Adult male rats were tested using an unbiased two-chamber apparatus across eight consecutive days. Prior to Meth administration, rats were pretreated with M100907 and placed into their initially non-preferred chamber. After four Meth conditioning sessions, the effects of M100907 on Meth-induced changes in CPP were …

Effects Of Chemogenetic Inhibition Of Ventral Hippocampal Glutamatergic Neurons On Anxiety-Like Defensivity In Male Long-Evans Hooded Rats, Carlos R. Maestas-Olguin

Psychology ETDs

Previous research in rodents and humans has implicated the ventral hippocampus in regulating anxiety. However, many rodent studies examining ventral hippocampal neuronal pathways have utilized lesions that create nonspecific and/or nonreversible damage to the region. The present study sought to characterize the role of ventral hippocampal glutamatergic pyramidal neurons in modulating anxiety-like behavior during exposure to a variety of threatening stimuli. Five weeks prior to testing, male Long-Evans hooded rats received ventral hippocampal viral-vector infusions expressing either pAAV-CaMKIIα-hM4D-mCherry (DREADD) or pAAV-CaMKIIa-EGFP (GFP). DREADD transfection allowed for the specific, noninvasive and temporary inhibition of ventral hippocampal glutamatergic neurons immediately before threat …

The Role Of Perceived Stress In The Relationship Between Purpose In Life And Mental Health., Anne Guzman

Psychology ETDs

Although purpose in life (PIL) has been consistently related to better mental health, there is little understanding of whether that may be explained by reducing appraisal of or reactivity to stress. The sample consisted of 546 undergraduate students who completed measures of PIL, perceived stress, and measures of both positive mental health (positive affect, life satisfaction) and negative mental health (negative affect, anxiety, depression). The hypotheses were that PIL would (1) be related to more positive and less negative mental health and (2) be related to less perceived stress, and (3) reduce the effects of perceived stress in increasing negative …

Evidence For Persistent Hypervigilance For Sexual Assault Survivors, Michãel Palmer

Psychology ETDs

Inhibition has been proposed as a cognitive mechanism that allows persons to screen out irrelevant information. This study investigated the effects of sexual assault on inhibition. Many sexual assault survivors experience intrusive memories of their assault that may be the result of deficient inhibitory processes. On the other hand, assault survivors often cope through avoidance which may strengthen inhibitory experience. Other hypotheses investigated the possibility that inhibitory strength changes across the healing process and that inhibition was related to trauma symptomatology. Forty-four survivors of sexual assault and seventy-nine non-assaulted controls were tested on two measures of inhibition: directed forgetting (a …