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Full-Text Articles in Psychology
Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Of Adverse Trauma Outcomes In Emerging Adulthood, Olena Kleshchova
Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Of Adverse Trauma Outcomes In Emerging Adulthood, Olena Kleshchova
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Background: Exposure to traumatic stress and adversity during the formative years of development can have adverse effects on mental health, neuroendocrine stress system function, and the brain, that persist into adulthood. One candidate mechanism that might confer vulnerability to enduring adverse outcomes of early life trauma is disruption of normal brain maturation. As the brain matures, functional interactions among brain regions change until the functional brain architecture (i.e., the functional connectome) reaches a mature state in adulthood. Given that different neural circuits have distinct developmental trajectories and sensitive periods, traumatic stress at a given point in development might have …
A Quadratic Analysis Of Trait Anxiety And Heart Rate Variability, Katlyn Schroder
A Quadratic Analysis Of Trait Anxiety And Heart Rate Variability, Katlyn Schroder
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Trait anxiety refers to an individual’s sensitivity to perceived threat. Though it is not itself diagnosable according to the DSM-5, trait anxiety scales are often administered in a clinical context and serve as an indicator for anxiety disorders. High levels of trait anxiety can result in prolonged periods of intense worry and dysfunction, even in those who are not diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Previous studies have attempted to understand the relationship between trait anxiety and reactivity of the autonomic nervous system, especially in relation to vagal tone, but have found inconsistent results. One possible explanation for this inconsistency is …
Experience-Dependent Changes In Nucleus Accumbens Activity Predict Cued Approach Learning: Contribution Of Nmda Receptors, Mercedes Vega Villar
Experience-Dependent Changes In Nucleus Accumbens Activity Predict Cued Approach Learning: Contribution Of Nmda Receptors, Mercedes Vega Villar
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Animals learn associations between environmental cues and the natural rewards they predict (e.g., food, water, sex). As a result, reward-predictive cues come to trigger vigorous reward-seeking responses. Many neurons in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) become excited upon presentation of an already-learned reward-predictive cue. These NAc responses encode the motivational value of the cue and are necessary for the expression of the subsequent approach behavior. However, the precise temporal relationship between the emergence of cue-evoked excitations in the NAc and the acquisition of cued approach behavior remains unknown. In Experiment 1, NAc activity was recorded as rats learned to approach a …