Behavioral Neurobiology Commons^™

The Effects Of Blocking Hippocampal Acetylcholine On Meal Onset In Male Rats, Jasmine Nicole Gentry

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Chemosensory Feedback Mediates Olfactory Organ Grooming In Spiny Lobsters, Jessica E. Haulk

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Selective Allosteric Activation Of M₄ Receptors For Memory Enhancement, Norma A. Hernandez

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Role Of Antennae In Procambarus Clarkii Thermosenstaion, Brian J. Bondy

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Does Periaqueductal Gray Glial Cell Activity Put Females At A Disadvantage For Pain Relief?, Laura Butkovich

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Neural Basis Of Top-Down Guided Action In Macaque Monkeys, Jessica M. Phillips

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

To thoroughly characterize any brain mechanism requires an appropriate animal model for invasive studies. An invaluable model system used toward a comprehension of cognitive neurophysiology is the macaque monkey. It is important to delineate similarities and limitations for this model in relation to the human brain and cognition. In this thesis, we have thus conducted three experiments to investigate putative generalizations between monkeys and humans regarding the neural processes associated with top-down action control in monkeys.

Our daily behaviour is largely comprised of automatic routine actions. The frequent repetition of certain behaviours in response to particular contexts can give rise …

Circadian Rhythms In Reward And Underlying Neural Circuits, Ricardo M. Baltazar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Studies suggest that the circadian timing system exerts an important influence on responses to rewarding stimuli. Diurnal rhythms in the rewarding value of amphetamine and mating behavior were observed, but differed in the pattern of their timing. Daily fluctuations in reward were correlated with oscillations in mesolimbic dopaminergic activity in both the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and ventral tegmental area (VTA), with a peak in NAc coinciding with the peak of sex reward, while the peak in the VTA associated with the peak in amphetamine reward. Also, rhythmic expression of the marker of neural activation, cFos, was observed in NAc, medial …

Rats Acquire Stronger Preference For Flavors Consumed Towards The End Of A High-Fat Meal, Kevin P. Myers

Faculty Journal Articles

Rats learn to prefer flavors associated with postingestive effects of nutrients. The physiological signals underlying this postingestive reward are unknown. We have previously shown that rats readily learn to prefer a flavor that was consumed early in a multi-flavored meal when glucose is infused intragastrically (IG), suggesting rapid postingestive reward onset. The present experiments investigate the timing of postingestive fat reward, by providing distinctive flavors in the first and second halves of meals accompanied by IG fat infusion. Learning stronger preference for the earlier or later flavor would indicate when the rewarding postingestive effects are sensed. Rats consumed sweetened, calorically-dilute …

Combined Effects Of Rearing Environment And Lead (Pb2+) Exposure On Visuospatial Learning And Memory In Rats, Nicholas Tolman

Behavioral Neuroscience Honors Papers

Critical periods of neural development occur during early postnatal life that correspond with increases in synaptic plasticity and the formation of neural circuits needed for learning and memory. This development can be profoundly influenced by experience and negatively affected by environmental toxins. Environmental enrichment and lead exposure inversely affect mediators of synaptic plasticity, which suggests that enrichment may have an attenuating effect on lead induced cognitive deficits. A wealth of evidence has indicated that exposure to excessive amounts of inorganic Pb2+ during early development can produce long lasting cognitive deficits in humans. Evidence also suggests that children raised in an …

The Effects Of Acute Nicotine Administration On Memory Formation And Neural Activity In The Hippocampus, Perirhinal Cortex, And Medial Septum: Implications For Neurodegenerative Disorders, Matthew Wishnoff

Behavioral Neuroscience Honors Papers

Within the general public, nicotine is commonly thought of as a harmful molecule due to its role in tobacco addiction. However, nicotinic stimulation of the cholinergic system has also been shown to enhance cognitive functioning. This enhancement is thought to be caused by an increase in the release of the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine (ACh), which is responsible for mediating a variety of cognitive processes, such as REM sleep and memory formation. Recent research by Melichercik and colleagues shows that systemic nicotine administration enhances memory acquisition for both object location and object recognition memory in rats, as assessed by a modified version …

Brain Activity Follow Up Of Stock Market Financial Variables, Armando F. Rocha, João Vieito, Fábio T. Rocha

Armando F Rocha

Efficiency Market hypothesis assume that all investors reason in the same way to make their financial decisions. In contrast, Neurosciences have provided strong evidences that cognitive diversity is the hallmark of human intelligence. Neurofinances has shown that volunteers learned different profitable financial decision-making strategies depending on the kind of market they begun to trade. Here, we decide to further explore this hypothesis by studying a possible correlation between brain activity and the financial variables in a stock market game and to test if this correlation differ between experimental groups that trade in different market conditions. Present results show that volunteers …

Factors Influencing The Effectiveness Of Repellents In Managing Birds, Larry Clark

Larry Clark

No abstract provided.

Influences Of Ecological Light Pollution On Advertisement Calls Of Spea Multiplicata (Amphibia: Anura: Scaphiopodidae) In Rural And Urban Populations In The Northern Chihuahuan Desert And An Evaluation Of Hybrid S. Bombifrons X S. Multiplicata Calls, Katie Anderson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Spea is a genus of toad-like, arid adapted frogs distributed throughout much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. Two species, (S. Bombifrons and S. Multiplicata) are syntopic throughout most of the northern Chihuahuan Desert, a region that is experiencing rapid urbanization. For this study, I examined 936 male advertisement calls from urban and rural populations of S. multiplicata, and a rural population of S. bombifrons in west Texas and south-central New Mexico. Advertisement calls from urban and rural S. multiplicata were compared against light level to assess the potential influence ecological light pollution plays in sexual …

Olanzapine Sensitization And Clozapine Tolerance: From Adolescence To Adulthood In The Conditioned Avoidance Response Model, Jing Qiao, Hong Li, Ming Li

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Disruption of conditioned avoidance response (CAR) in rodents is one trademark feature of many antipsychotic drugs. In adult rats, repeated olanzapine (OLZ) treatment causes an enhanced disruption of avoidance response (sensitization), whereas repeated clozapine (CLZ) treatment causes a decreased disruption (tolerance). The present study addressed (1) whether OLZ sensitization and CLZ tolerance can be induced in adolescent rats, and (2) the extent to which OLZ sensitization and CLZ tolerance induced in adolescence persists into adulthood. Male adolescent Sprague–Dawley rats (approximate postnatal days (BP) 43–47) were first treated with OLZ (1.0 or 2.0 mg/kg, subcutaneously (sc)) or CLZ (10 or 20 …

Rats Acquire Stronger Preference For Flavors Consumed Towards The End Of A High-Fat Meal, Kevin P. Myers

Faculty Journal Articles

Rats learn to prefer flavors associated with postingestive effects of nutrients. The physiological signals underlying this postingestive reward are unknown. We have previously shown that rats readily learn to prefer a flavor that was consumed early in a multi-flavored meal when glucose is infused intragastrically (IG), suggesting rapid postingestive reward onset. The present experiments investigate the timing of postingestive fat reward, by providing distinctive flavors in the first and second halves of meals accompanied by IG fat infusion. Learning stronger preference for the earlier or later flavor would indicate when the rewarding postingestive effects are sensed. Rats consumed sweetened, calorically-dilute …

Injury Establishes Constitutive Μ-Opioid Receptor Activity Leading To Lasting Endogenous Analgesia And Dependence, Gregory F. Corder

Theses and Dissertations--Physiology

Injury causes increased pain sensation in humans and animals but the mechanisms underlying the emergence of persistent pathological pain states, which arise in the absence of on-going physical damage, are unclear. Therefore, elucidating the physiological regulation of such intractable pain is of exceptional biomedical importance. It is well known that endogenous activation of µ-opioid receptors (MORs) provides relief from acute pain but the consequences of prolonged endogenous opioidergic signaling have not been considered. Here we test the hypothesis that the intrinsic mechanisms of MOR signaling promote pathological sensitization of pain circuits in the spinal cord. We found that tissue inflammation …

Loss Of Dendritic Inhibition In The Hippocampus After Repeated Early-Life Hyperthermic Seizures In Rats., Richard Boyce, L Stan Leung

Physiology and Pharmacology Publications

Seizures are relatively common in children and are a risk factor for subsequent temporal lobe epilepsy. To investigate whether early-life seizures themselves are detrimental to the proper function of the adult brain, we studied whether dendritic excitation and inhibition in the hippocampus of adult rats were altered after hyperthermia-induced seizures in immature rats. In particular, we hypothesized that apical dendritic inhibition in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells would be disrupted following hyperthermia-induced seizures in early life. Seizure rats were given three hyperthermia-induced seizures per day for three days from postnatal day (PND) 13 to 15; control rats were handled similarly but …

The Effect Of Visual Wulst Lesions And Trigeminal Nerve Sectioning On The Discrimination Of Magnetic Inclination In The Homing Pigeon (Columba Livia), Merissa Acerbi

Honors Projects

The ability of homing pigeons to return to their loft from unknown places has fascinated scientists for centuries. It is well established that homing pigeons, like migratory birds, posses an innate magnetic inclination compass to determine direction by measuring the angle between the magnetic field vector and the Earth's surface. Recent work has indicated that the avian magnetic compass is light mediated and appears to mediate magnetic information to the brain. This occurs via a visual pathway with processing in the visual Wulst area of the forebrain. There is, however, also evidence from other avian species that magnetic direction may …

Cognitive And Physiological Moderators Of Daily Smokers' Early Neural Attentional Biases To Smoking And Nonsmoking Cues, Patrick John Hammett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Diet-Induced Obesity: Dopaminergic And Behavioral Mechanisms As Outcomes And Predictors, Vidya Narayanaswami

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Obesity and drug abuse share common neural circuitries including the mesocoticolimbic and striatal dopamine reward system. In the current study, a rat model of diet-induced obesity (DIO) was used to determine striatal dopamine function, impulsivity and motivation as neurobehavioral outcomes and predictors of obesity. For the outcome study, rats were randomly assigned a high-fat (HF) or a low-fat (LF) diet for 8 wk. Following the 8-wk HF-diet exposure, rats were segregated into obesity-prone and obesity-resistant groups based on maximum and minimum body weight gain, respectively, and neurobehavioral outcomes were evaluated. For the predictor study, neurobehavioral antecedents were evaluated prior to …