Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Where To Draw The Line: Evaluating Visuospatial And Attentional Processing In Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Alisha Steigerwald

University Honors Theses

Objective: We investigated visuospatial processing in individuals with autism using bisection and quadrisection tasks to evaluate the presence of a possible downward vertical spatial bias that could provide insights into the preference for attending to the mouth in ASD populations.

Methods: Twenty participants with ASD and 20 age, IQ, and sex-matched control participants were recruited (ages 6-23). Participants were asked to bisect, quadrisect from the top, and quadrisect from the bottom vertical lines placed in their left, center, and right visual spaces. Distance from the true midpoint and quadripoint were calculated and compared between the two groups.

Results: No significant …

The Effect Of Diazepam On Early Neural Stem Cells Proliferative Activity And Hippocampal-Dependent Memory After Traumatic Brain Injury, Van Khanh Doan

University Honors Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) induces an upregulation of neurogenesis in the brain specifically in the hippocampus, an area pertaining to learning and memory formation. Although this upregulated response is intuitively thought to be restorative, previous studies show that the nascent neurons generated after TBI exhibit abnormalities, such as aberrant morphologies and early migrations, which could suggest to be maladaptive. The GABA-A agonist diazepam has been shown to inhibit this upregulation in neurogenesis and normalizes dendrites after TBI. To determine whether this modulation of neurogenesis is ultimately beneficial or detrimental to cognitive recovery, diazepam was administered to C57BI/6J wild-type mice following …

Evaluation Of A Short-Form Of The Berg Card Sorting Test, Christopher J. Fox, Shane T. Mueller, Hilary M. Gray, Jacob Raber, Brian J. Piper

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Psychology Experimental Building Language http://pebl.sourceforge.net/Berg Card Sorting Test is an open-source neurobehavioral test. Participants (N = 207, ages 6 to 74) completed the Berg Card Sorting Test. Performance on the first 64 trials were isolated and compared to that on the full-length (128 trials) test. Strong correlations between the short and long forms (total errors: r = .87, perseverative response: r = .83, perseverative errors r = .77, categories completed r = .86) support the Berg Card Sorting Test-64 as an abbreviated alternative for the full-length executive function test.

Constructive Perception Of Self-Motion, Jan E. Holly, Gin Mccollum

Gin McCollum

This review focusses attention on a ragged edge of our knowledge of self-motion perception, where understanding ends but there are experimental results to indicate that present approaches to analysis are inadequate. Although self-motion perception displays processes of “top-down” construction, it is typically analyzed as if it is nothing more than a deformation of the stimulus, using a “bottom-up” and input/output approach beginning with the transduction of the stimulus. Analysis often focusses on the extent to which passive transduction of the movement stimulus is accurate. Some perceptual processes that deform or transform the stimulus arise from the way known properties of …

Cognitive-Vestibular Interactions: A Review Of Patient Difficulties And Possible Mechanisms, Douglas A. Hanes, Gin Mccollum

Gin McCollum

Cognitive deficits such as poor concentration and short-term memory loss are known by clinicians to occur frequently among patients with vestibular abnormalities. Although direct scientific study of such deficits has been limited, several types of investigations do lend weight to the existence of vestibular-cognitive effects. In this article we review a wide range of studies indicating a vestibular influence on the ability to perform certain cognitive functions. In addition to tests of vestibular patient abilities, these studies include dual-task studies of cognitive and balance functions, studies of vestibular contribution to spatial perception and memory, and works demonstrating a vestibular influence …

Material-Specific Processes In Tactile Short-Term Memory, Christina Anne Meyers

Dissertations and Theses

Studies concerning tactile short-term memory (short-term memory or the sense of touch) have often been contradictory. Some of these studies support the existence of modality-specific tactile memory, a separate, independent storage system for tactile information. Other studies do not support such a system. Further, confusion has arisen regarding the tactile test materials, since many of them use common shapes which are easily labeled verbally. It is hypothesized that information which can be labeled is stored in material-specific verbal memory in the left hemisphere, while patterned or spatial information is stored in material-specific nonverbal memory in the right hemisphere.

This paper …