Animal Studies Commons^™

Assessing The Impact Of Lipopolysaccharide On Learning And Memory In Rats, Anahat Luthra

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The immune system and the central nervous system (CNS) have a bi-direction relationship, modulating one another.⁴ Proinflammatory cytokines released from CNS immune cells have an impact on cognitive processes such as learning and memory.¹ Liposaccharide (LPS), a cell wall component of Gram-negative bacteria, which is used to activate proinflammatory cytokine release has been found to impact learning and memory processes, such as in the anticipatory nausea paradigm (ANP).² Anticipatory nausea and vomiting is that which may occur before a chemotherapy treatment session begins in a patient who has had chemotherapy before. It is caused by triggers like …

The Effects Of The Aromatase Inhibitor, Letrozole, On Lithium Chloride (Licl)-Induced Conditioned Disgust Behaviour (Anticipatory Nausea) In Male Rats, Vangel Matic

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Anticipatory Nausea (AN) is a form of classical conditioning in which the effects of a nausea-inducing toxin become associated with a specific environmental context. AN is often experienced by individuals receiving chemotherapy treatment, whereby the emetic effects of the chemotherapy agents become associated with the treatment context (i.e. hospital, clinic), such that exposure to the context alone can cause an individual to experience nausea and potentially withdraw from treatment. Chemotherapy-associated AN is suggested to have a higher incidence in females compared to males.

AN can be represented in a rodent model (conditioned disgust) through the occurrence of conditioned gaping behaviour …

Characterizing Putative Sexually Dimorphic Effects Of A Propionic Acid Induced Autism Spectrum Disorder Phenotype In Adult Male And Female Rats, Katie C. Benitah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Research suggests that certain gut and dietary factors may worsen symptoms in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Studies have shown that treatment with the bacterial product, propionic acid (PPA), elicits neuroinflammatory and behavioral responses in rats that are characteristic of ASD in humans. A consistent male bias in ASD prevalence has been observed, and several sex-differential genetic and hormonal factors have been suggested to contribute. However, most studies of ASD, including those involving PPA, focus on males. The present study explored putative sex differences in the effects of PPA (500mg/kg) on a rat behavioral ASD phenotype and the influence of the …

Behavioural Flexibility In Bumblebees (Bombus Impatiens), Caroline Strang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Foraging bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) extract nectar and pollen from a wide variety of morphologically distinct flower species, referred to as flower handling. Bumblebees learn this behaviour and acquisition of multiple flower handling techniques is a demonstration of behavioural flexibility. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how bumblebees are able to forage flexibly. This research has three specific goals: (1) to identify the cognitive mechanisms that support flower handling learning, (2) to understand how bumblebees avoid interference costs between multiple handling techniques, and (3) to explore the relation between behavioural flexibility and the mushroom bodies of the …

The Effect Of The Presence And Familiarity Of A Dog On People’S Performance Of A Stressful Task, Lyn Brown

Undergraduate Honors Posters

The purpose of the current study was to test whether the familiarity of a dog affects a person’s stress and task performance on a stressful task. Pets can improve people’s health mentally, physically, and socially. Dogs can lower people’s stress. This stress-reduction effect has been explained by the stress-buffering hypothesis. Dogs’ stress reducing capabilities have been applied with dog therapy in schools, hospitals, and with the elderly. In this study, dog-owning students performed mental arithmetic as a stressful task, with or without a dog present, during which their heart rate was measured as a stress indicator. The independent variables were …

The Mental Number Line In Domestic Chicks, Samantha Noyek

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The estimation of number by humans shows evidence for a mental number line in which magnitude increases from left to right. Rugani, Vallortigara, Priftis, and Regolin (2015) recently reported a similar mental number line in domestic chicks. This is an unexpected result given the role of language and culture in the human mental number line. Animals do not possess language or arithmetic concepts like the mental number line. Because the results reported by Rugani et al. (2015) seem improbable from this perspective, my study sought to determine whether the observations of Rugani et al. (2015) occur reliably. I tested for …