Digital Commons Network^™

Design Recommendations For Socially Assistive Robots For Health And Social Care Based On A Large Scale Analysis Of Stakeholder Positions, Hannah Louise Bradwell, Noury Ge Aguiar, Katie Jane Edwards, Rhona Winnington, Serge Thill, Ray B. Jones

School of Nursing and Midwifery

No abstract provided.

Bacteriophage Virus-Like Particle Based Vaccines Targeting Opioids, Isabella Murphy, Susan Core, Andzoa Jamus, Bryce Chackerian, Kathryn M. Frietze

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Opioid use disorder (OUD) and opioid overdose are growing problems. Opioid vaccines are a novel treatment approach for OUD, but current vaccine strategies are slow to elicit antibodies and require multiple immunizations. Here, we report our efforts to engineer opioid vaccines that could elicit high-titer, long-lasting antibodies with a single dose. We used bacteriophage Q beta virus-like particles (VLPs) as a platform to display oxycodone in a highly immunogenic format. Opioid drugs of interest were chemically modified to include a short peptide linker (G-G-G- G-C). This allowed for the chemical conjugation of the opioid drugs to the surface of the …

Pt181-Qß Vlp-Based Vaccine Against Tau Pathology Shows Robust Immune Response And Functional Efficacy In The P301s Mouse Model Of Tauopathy, Nicole Maphis, Julianne Peabody, Shanya Jiang, Yirong Yang, D N. Linsenbardt, David S. Peabody, Bryce Chackerian, Kiran Bhaskar

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Background:

Tauopathies are progressive neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the hyperphosphorylation of tau and development of intracellular neurofibrillary tangles, collectively referred to as pathological tau (pTau). It is becoming increasingly recognized that the development and spread of pTau accurately predicts and correlates with clinical progression in human tauopathy patients, however there are no FDA-approved drugs that target and reduce pTau. Previously, our lab has developed a virus-like particle (VLP)-based vaccine using a Qß (RNA bacteriophage) platform to multivalently display a 13-mer pTau peptide, with phospho-Thr181 (pT181, a well-established CSF biomarker for tauopathies). pT181-Qß generates a robust and targeted immune response against …

Effects Of Neuronal Activation And Psychiatric Treatment On Circhomer1 Biogenesis, Grigorios Papageorgiou, Nikolaos Mellios

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Schizophrenia (SCZ) and Bipolar disorder (BD) are heterogeneous psychiatric disorders that together affect more than 3.5% of the US population. Studies using animal, pharmacological models

and post-mortem data, have revealed abnormalities in the dopaminergic and glutamatergic pathways, however, the pathogenesis remains vague. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been shown to play a role in regulating gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional level and having implications on brain development and psychiatric diseases. Circular RNAs are a category of ncRNAs, formed after back-splicing of exons/introns, covalently linked, enriched in the mammalian brain and derived from genes that are implicated in synaptic plasticity. …

Circhomer1 Has Biomarker Potential For Cortical Dysfunction In Psychiatric Disease, Amber Zimmerman, Alexander Hafez, Jason P. Weick, Nora Perrone-Bizzozero, Nikolaos Mellios, Jonathan Brigman

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are an emerging class of long non-coding RNAs with complex regulatory potential that can impact gene expression and function. However, the vast majority of circRNAs have not been characterized and little is known about their function in the brain despite their abundance in cortical tissue. Recent work has focused on circRNAs as biomarkers for disease and therapeutics due to their increased stability since their biogenesis through backsplicing renders them resistant to RNA degradation. CircRNAs are developmentally regulated and differentially regulated in brain disorders including Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). While plasticity-related protein-coding genes have been associated …

Virtually Renovating The Trauma Film Paradigm: Comparing Virtual Reality With On-Screen Presentation Of An Analogue Trauma., Grace Baptie, Jackie Andrade, Alison M. Bacon, Alyson Norman

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

Handling The Heat: Responses Of Two Congeneric Limpet Species To Environmental Temperature Differences, Jc Redfern, A Foggo, N Mieszkowska

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Neanderthal Ecology In Western Iberia: The Case From Lapa Do Picareiro, Milena Moreira De Carvalho

Anthropology ETDs

In Iberia, potentially the last place where Neanderthals survived, the demographic breakdown of small, loosely connected populations seems to have been a significant driver their demise. Human responses to the climatic fluctuations of the Late Pleistocene, particularly Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3, could be an explanation for the decreases in Neanderthal population size during this time; it may be that habitat fragmentation and environmental instability contributed to a demographic breakdown, resulting in small, secluded Neanderthal populations that remained for some time in refugia, even after the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago. In this dissertation, …

Spatial Variation In The Gastrointestinal Microbiome, Diet, And Nutritional Condition Of A Juvenile Flatfish Among Coastal Habitats, Marc T. Morris, Chris Hauton, Alison J. Baylay, Luca Peruzza, Timothy E. Targett, Benjamin J. Ciotti

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Plasticity Of Thermal Performance Curves In A Narrow Range Endemic Water Beetle, Susana Pallarés, Wilco C.E.P. Verberk, David T. Bilton

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Imaging Patterns Of Encephalopathy In Patients With Covid-19, Kumail Khandwala, Fatima Mubarak, Nadeem Ahmad

Department of Radiology

The aim of this retrospective observational study was to describe the neuroimaging manifestations of patients with COVID-19. This study was conducted at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan from March to July 2020. COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms and positive neuroimaging were included after confirmation of COVID-19 by polymerase chain reaction test (PCR). In the 12 included patients, seizures and altered mentation were predominant neurological manifestations. Three cases had acute watershed infarcts (25%), two cases had posterior cerebral artery territorial infarcts (16.7%), two cases had periventricular corona radiata infarcts (16.7%), three cases had hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (25%), two cases had …

Medial Prefrontal Cortical Projections Are Altered By A Single Acute Fear Experience: Evidence For Biological Mechanisms Of Anxiety And Substance Abuse Disorders, E L. Bearer, Taylor Uselman, Christopher M. Medina, Russell E. Jacobs

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Pyramidal neurons from medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) project into striatum, thalamus, hypothalamus, and went as far as dorsal raphe nucleus (midbrain) and locus coeruleus (pons). Neural activity in mPFC is reciprocally modulated by monoamine systems arising in these distant brain regions: noradrenergic, dopaminergic and serotonergic. By deregulating these systems genetically, we previously reported that functional projections from mPFC are similarly regulated by these monoaminergic systems using brain-wide tracing based on manganese-enhanced magentic resonance imaging (MEMRI) followed by statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Here we report that a single experience of acute threat alters mPFC projections in wild type mice, and this …

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Enhances Morphine-Mediated Toll Like Receptor (Tlr)-4 Actions And Paradoxically Prolongs Nerve Injury-Induced Pathological Pain, Shahani Noor, Melody S. Sun, Chaselyn D. Ruffaner-Hanson, Monique V. Nysus, Diane C. Jimenez, Fernando F. Valenzuela, Erin D. Milligan

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Our prior work demonstrates that adult prenatal alcohol exposed (PAE) rats with minimal nerve injury develop allodynia (pathological light touch sensitivity) in concert with aberrant peripheral-spinal glial and immune activation. Nerve-injured PAE rats display heightened proinflammatory cytokine production (IL-1β, TNF-α, CCL2) typically produced following activation of innate immune receptors, TLR4 and Nod-like receptor family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes. This suggests that PAE-related adaptations prime peripheral macrophages and central nervous system (CNS) glia to over-respond to subtle challenges through exaggerated TLR4 and NLRP3 inflammasome reactivity. Interestingly, morphine, a standard opioid pain therapeutic, binds the μ-opioid receptor and also glial …

Effect Of Dexpramipexole On Neuropathic Pain In Prenatal Alcohol Exposed Male And Female Subjects, Justine Zimmerly, Andrea Pasmay, Shahani Noor, Annette Fernandez, Melody Sun, Suzy Davies, Daniel Savage, Nikolaos Mellios, Erin Milligan

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) results in chronic central nervous system (CNS) deficits and heightened neuroimmune responses that persist into adulthood. Young adult animals with moderate PAE display pathological sensitivity to light touch, referred to as allodynia, following sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury (CCI). Allodynia coincides with activated spinal glia and an increased presence of peripheral immune cells that invade the CNS. Activated glia and immune cells release the potent pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-1 (IL-1β). Previous studies have shown that dexpramipexole, an enantiomer of pramipexole, reduces caspase-3 and cell death, suggesting a possible anti-inflammatory action. The current study explored whether dexpramipexole is …

Reversal Of Prenatal Alcohol-Induced Deficits In Long-Term Potentiation By The Histamine H3 Inverse Agonist Sar153954, Monica Goncalves-Garcia, Suzy Davies, Daniel D. Savage, Derek A. Hamilton

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Cognitive impairments are common consequences of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The hippocampus is susceptible to the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) which persist throughout an individual’s life. Previous studies have identified deficits in long-term potentiation (LTP) in perforant pathway to dentate gyrus synapses as an adverse consequence of PAE. Although there have been numerous investigations, PAE-induced deficits in synaptic plasticity remain poorly understood. Currently, there are no known, clinically effective pharmacotherapeutic interventions for these deficits. This study investigated the effects of PAE on LTP in the dentate gyrus and the H3 receptor inverse agonist, SAR152954, as a candidate …

Effects Of Moderate Prenatal Alcohol Exposure On Nmdars Expression And Functionality In Orbitofrontal Cortex Pyramidal Neurons, Valentina Licheri, Jayapriya Chandrasekaran, Clark W. Bird, Carlos F. Valenzuela, Jonathan L. Brigman

Brain & Behavioral Health Research Day

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy represents a major public health problem. Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) disrupts the Central Nervous System (CNS) development inducing long lasting behavioral and cognitive alterations collectively known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs). It is well established that alcohol affects different cellular targets, but the molecular mechanisms underlying these problems are not still understood. Our previous data reported a significant impairment in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)-mediated reversal learning (Marquardt et al., 2014b), and an altered firing of OFC pyramidal neurons (Marquardt et al., 2020). Considering that N-Methyl-D-Aspartate receptors (NMDARs) are altered in rodent models after prenatal alcohol exposure …

A Review On Electroculture, Magneticulture And Laserculture To Boostplant Growth, Victor Christianto, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

While several reviews on potential applications of electroculture are available, in this survey, we discuss these issues from history, starting from earliest experiments by Ross. And in the last section, we discuss possible application of laserculture, another form of potential improvement. It is our hope that what we present here may be found useful for improving agricultural performance in many countries, as well as reducing dependence on fertilizer.

Unnecessary Burdens To Post-Conviction Dna Testing: New Mexico's Post-Conviction Dna Relief Statute And Suggestions For Improvement, Samantha Catalano

Student Published Scholarship

Post-conviction DNA testing is often the last option a convicted person may have to establish that they are not guilty of a crime. New Mexico's post-conviction DNA statute requires convicted persons who seek DNA testing to claim innocence and establish that the identity of the perpetrator was an issue at trial. These requirements are currently included in many state post-conviction DNA statutes; however, some states have amended their statutes to remove these unnecessary requirements. Convicted persons who claimed self-defense, or another affirmative defense may be denied post-conviction DNA testing because of inability to claim "innocence" and because the identity of …

Overlapping Roles Of Nadph Oxidase 4 (Nox4) For Diabetic And Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agent-Induced Systemic Fibrosis-Animal Equivalent Dosing Of Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents Supplementary Figure 2, Francesca Bruno, Joshua Deaguero, Catherine Do, Doug Yoon Lee, Chunyan Tan, G Patricia Escobar, Brent Wagner

The Kidney Institute of New Mexico

Supplementary figure for the forthcoming publication entitled “Overlapping roles of NADPH Oxidase 4 (Nox4) for diabetic and gadolinium-based contrast agent-induced systemic fibrosis”. Supplementary Figure 2 demonstrates renal changes induced by gadolinium-based contrast agent treatment and experimental diabetes. Photomicrographs analyzed by a blinded veterinary pathologist.

Pore Space Property, Joseph A. Schremmer

Faculty Scholarship

Through modern technology we can use the void pore space of underground rock formations for a growing number of socially beneficial purposes. These run the gamut from unconventional oil and gas production to climate change mitigation. The common law of property and tort, however, has struggled to keep up with advancing technology in this area. Significant questions remain about the nature of property rights in pore space. Of particular interest are the limits, if any, on an owner’s right to use pore space for beneficial purposes when it extends beneath the land of another. For example, may A hydraulically fracture …