Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

The Color Of Sound: An Insight On Chromesthesia, Lupe Rodriguez

Honors Capstones

Many people can see with their eyes, but there are some people who can see through sound. Chromesthesia is when sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color through shapes and movement. The goal of this project is to show what this experience is like and give people an opportunity to experience it in a way themselves.

The Color of Sound Website Prototype

Plant Sentience: The Burden Of Proof, Jon Mallatt, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz

Animal Sentience

Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (2023) target article takes a less speculative and more evidence-based approach to plant sentience than did previous works promoting that idea. However, it retains many of the idea’s longstanding difficulties such as starting from a false dichotomy (plants must be either hardwired or sentient), not accepting the full burden of proof for an extraordinary claim, confusingly redefining accepted cognitive terms, implying cell consciousness, not adopting the most parsimonious explanations for plant behaviors, and downplaying all the counterevidence. We advise rectifying these problems before plant sentience can become a full-fledged scientific domain.

Plants Lack The Functional Neurotransmitters And Signaling Pathways Required For Sentience In Animals, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz, Jon Mallatt

Animal Sentience

We cannot agree with Segundo-Ortin and Calvo that plants are sentient organisms. We have critically examined several aspects of their target article, and find their claims are not supported by the published evidence. We address these claims in sections on whether plants have a ‘neurobiology’ analogous to that of animal nervous systems, including neurotransmitters and synaptic receptors that respond to anesthetics; and whether plant signaling resembles neural transmission. For the latter, we especially consider the unique way plants signal their responses to wounding. Although the plant vascular system has been compared to the animal nervous system, animal blood vessels would …

The Impacts Of Immune Challenges On Fish Behavior And Physiology, Teisha King

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For species living in dominance hierarchies, social rank dictates access to resources and often contributes to reproductive success. To ensure survival, individuals constantly evaluate trade- offs between crucial biological systems, like the reproductive and immune systems, depending on their social rank and physiological state. Little is known about how social species balance interactions between immune system function, fluctuations in social status and reproductive fitness, and the performance of behaviors necessary for maintaining social status when sick, particularly in fishes, the largest and most diverse group of vertebrates. My dissertation research uses a whole animal approach to examine how physiological profiles …

Enhancing The Quality Of Life For Senior Citizens: A Facilitator’S Guidebook For Mindful Music And Movement, Shannon Sexton

Mindfulness Studies Theses

Music appreciation and enjoyment enhance well-being throughout the lifespan. The challenges and constraints that people experience as they age can lead to lack of access to music, decreased physical activity, and fewer avenues for creative expression. Group music and movement interventions created for older populations offer opportunities for social connection and improved quality of life. Mindful practices add further benefit when combined with these interventions. Current available programs are scarce and most often do not encompass mixed modalities. In addition, the benefits of these programs do not show long-term sustainability. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the effects …

Periodic Paralysis : Pursuing A Protocol, Kirsten Denman

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis is an autosomal dominant disease of skeletal muscle in which patients experience episodes of weakness. There is currently no highly effective therapy. A mouse model has been created to study the disease to better understand the physiological changes leading to weakness and to develop novel treatments. However, the work done with the mouse model has used ever-changing protocols and the data produced have been insufficient to answer key questions and bring treatments closer to clinical trials. I evaluated factors of temperature, insulin, potassium concentrations, and length of protocol or exercise, to develop a protocol that reproducibly triggers …

Female Middle Aged Rats Showed Increased Recovery From A Focal Demyelination With Drug Combination : Changes In Dcx And Nfkb Suggest Increased Oligodendrocytes Production, Andrew James Smith

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Neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis affect millions of people around the globe, and promising treatments to counter its progress have been studied extensively. In our study, we used Dawley rats and tested them using the Montoya Staircase test to evaluate their ability to use their forelimbs. After training, surgery was performed using lysolecithin to induce focal demyelination on the rats. After the surgery a drug combination of fluoxetine, ibuprofen, and ascorbic acid was used on injured rats and they were then retested on the Montoya Staircase test. They were then sacrificed and were stained for doublecortin (DCX) and nuclear …

Effect Of Reduced Cardiomyocyte O-Glcnacylation On The Expression And Activity Of The Cardiac Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel, Chiagozie Dawn Bede Paul-Onyia

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Abnormal glycosylation can impact cardiac proteins, affecting signaling, contraction, and metabolism, which leads to compromised cardiac function. O-GlcNAcylation, the only form of intracellular glycosylation, involves adding a single GlcNAc molecule to proteins via enzymes: O-GlcNAc Transferase (OGT) for addition and O-GlcNAcase (OGA) for removal. The Ednie/Bennett lab has previously demonstrated that in both chronic (OGT KO) and acute (OGT inhibition) models of reduced cardiomyocyte O-GlcNAcylation, a disruption of Ca2+ homeostasis occurs. This study delved into the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel (NaV 1.5) in these models. NaV 1.5 expression was analyzed through western blotting and immunocytochemistry, while its functional activity was …

Repeated Occupational-Level Exposure To The Pesticide Malathion Leads To Neuronal Atrophy In The Dorsal Root Ganglion, Arian K. Mcneil

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Environmental exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides, such as malathion, is a risk factor for neuropathy and neurodegeneration. Toxic levels of OPs irreversibly inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AchE) activity, leading to acute paralysis and even death as the neurotransmitter acetylcholine accumulates at cholinergic synapses. In addition, there is compelling evidence that repeated low-level “occupational-like” exposure to OPs is associated with somatosensory defects but the cellular mechanisms for this effect are unclear. We show sensory neuron cell size in the dorsal root ganglia is significantly reduced in rats exposed to occupational level malathion. However, co-administration of a reversible AchE inhibitor, galantamine, prevented this effect.

Sex Differences In Endothelial Function, Metabolism, And Sleep: Responses To Disrupted Circadian Rhythms, Olga Hecmarie Meléndez-Fernández

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Circadian rhythms are endogenous cycles that recur approximately every 24 h, and manifest in virtually every physiological and behavioral process among the vast majority of organisms. These rhythms, sustained by the central circadian clock, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus, allow for optimal timing of biological processes that ensure organisms’ homeostasis, and are entrained to precisely 24 h by daily exposure to light. Disruption of the molecular mechanisms that drive these rhythms have negative consequences on physiology and behavior that may impair survival. The molecular mechanisms that underlie these effects are widely studied and linked to multiple diseases and …

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words: Factors Influencing Disability Accommodations, Alicia E. Martin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Because not all disabilities look the same it is difficult to label a person with disabilities just by looking at them. Given that our knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions impact how we interpret our world and our willingness to act, people, including professors, may be biased toward providing accommodations for those with easily recognizable disabilities and biased against those with non-recognizable disabilities, and this may impact the disabled person’s ability to learn. This thesis aims to address whether professors’ disability-related attitudes, perceptions of accommodation reasonableness, and willingness to provide accommodations differ when the disability is recognizable (student is pictured in a …

Body Temperature And Diet As Drivers Of Obesity Development, Jessie Morrill

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Metabolic disease and obesity affect millions of individuals worldwide and the prevalence of obesity is expected to continue to rise. Mechanisms underlying diet-induced metabolic disease and obesity are complex and are largely unknown. In this dissertation research, we aimed to make advances toward understanding how body temperature and high-fat diet consumption contribute to the development of obesity. Herein, we describe the progress that was made toward three research projects. In the first project, we develop novel animal models to determine the impact of reduced body temperature on obesity development and also demonstrate that severe obesity can be reversed through increased …

On The Roles Of Trait Anxiety And Toll Like Receptor 4 In Amphetamine Sensitization In Adolescent Male Rats, Corey A. Calhoun

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Mammalian adolescence can be a difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, where increases in impulsivity and novelty- and risk-seeking are combined with heightened affect and elevated sensitivity to stress. Indeed, during adolescence, first drug use patterns emerge and in the continental United States, increasing misuse of amphetamines has been observed in adolescent youth. Myriad neural mechanisms underlie this shift in adolescence, including the dynamic remodeling of the mesocorticolimbic (MCL) pathway. Repeated drug administration affects neuroimmune substrates within the MCL circuit including toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)Advances in addiction neuroscience indicate that drugs of abuse activate neural TLR4 and implicate glial TLR4 …

The Effects Of Acute Exercise Intensity On Retrieval-Induced Forgetting, Geoffrey Reliquias

Honors Theses

Previous research has indicated that aspects of cognitive inhibition may be enhanced after engaging in acute exercise. Notably, cognitive inhibition has been theorized as a potential mechanism for a form of active forgetting known as retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). Given that cognitive inhibition may explain the RIF phenomenon, and is also influenced by exercise, it is plausible that acute exercise may directly influence RIF. To our knowledge, only one study has examined whether acute exercise has an effect on RIF. The findings of that study did not find a statistically significant effect for RIF; however, we believe that the rather small …

Linking Spinal Cord Circuits With Upper Limb Sensorimotor Control In Adults With Cerebral Palsy, Saihari Dukkipati

Theses & Dissertations

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common neurological disorder originating in childhood, but most of the people living with CP are currently adults. While people with CP continue to get older, the amount of research focused on adults has been rather limited. The early childhood insults leading to CP are thought to originate in the brain, but the effects on the entire neuromuscular system across the lifespan have only recently started to be explored. Of note, recent neuroimaging evidence suggests that the cervical spinal cord structure is atypical in adults with CP. However, it is largely unclear how the neurophysiological …

Neural Substrates Of Homing Pigeon Spatial Navigation: Results From Electrophysiology Studies, Gerald E. Hough

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

Over many centuries, the homing pigeon has been selectively bred for returning home from a distant location. As a result of this strong selective pressure, homing pigeons have developed an excellent spatial navigation system. This system passes through the hippocampal formation (HF), which shares many striking similarities to the mammalian hippocampus; there are a host of shared neuropeptides, interconnections, and its role in the storage and manipulation of spatial maps. There are some notable differences as well: there are unique connectivity patterns and spatial encoding strategies. This review summarizes the comparisons between the avian and mammalian hippocampal systems, and the …

New Treatment For Multiple Sclerosis Could Halt Disease Progression Without Weakening Immune System, Carter Helquist, Dario Mizrachi

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

• Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating neurological and autoimmune disease in which immune cells cause demyelination of axons in nervous tissue.
• Current treatments for the disease are principally aimed at weakening the immune system to therefore weaken the autoimmune attack on the brain. This leaves patients prone to other sicknesses.
• We seek a treatment that prevents the immune cells from entering the central nervous system (CNS) thereby protecting its cells.
• We can prevent immune cells from entering the CNS by strengthening the blood brain barrier through targeting claudin 5 proteins in the tight junctions.
• This new treatment could mean increased …

Mechanistic Insight Into Chronic Stress-Induced Cerebrovascular Dysfunction, Emily Nicole Burrage

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Despite decades of research psychological stress remains a prevalent problem in society, often diminishing quality of life and increasing the risk of developing dementia. The brain plays a central role in the response to stress and as it is unable to store energy substrates, the brain relies heavily on dynamically regulated blood flow. Therefore, it is important that there is a tight coupling between neural activity and cerebral blood flow to meet metabolic demands and maintain critical brain function. It has been established that chronic psychological stress has detrimental effects on cerebrovascular function, potentially through increased superoxide anion production through …

Evaluation Of A Monosynaptic Spinal Circuit In Multiple Mouse Models Of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Maura A. Curran

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease. To date, there are no significant disease-modifying treatments, and one limiting factor in treatment is the amount of time it takes for a patient to receive a diagnosis of ALS. This study examined multiple mouse models before symptom onset to help identify early changes in a reflex circuit of ALS mice. Dorsal root stimulation of the sacral spinal cord in multiple models ALS mouse models showed changes in the resulting ventral root compound action potential amplitude, latency, and ability to maintain synaptic depression. These data also suggest that a mouse model …

Use Of Forelimb Asymmetry In The Analysis Of Cns Recovery From A Demyelination Event, Joseph C. Hinkle

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Using forelimb asymmetry analysis along with Montoya Staircase methodology we tested how a fluoxetine simvastatin ascorbic acid drug cocktail would affect recovery from a demyelinating event in a rat model, with the hypothesis that if administered then it would help female recovery but hinder male recovery. It was found that a fluoxetine simvastatin and ascorbic acid drug cocktail did not significantly enhance recovery from a demyelination model injury in female rats, and that the same drug cocktail significantly slowed male rat recovery from the same type of injury. It was also apparent that the more effective methodology for investigating this …

Microglia Distribution In The Lateral Ventricles Following Treatment Of Lysolecithin Model Of Multiple Sclerosis, Spencer James Wilson

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Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects an estimated one million people in the US alone (Wallin et al., 2019). We modeled MS in rats using lysolecithin injection into the corpus callosum to diminish motor function unilaterally through demyelination, meanwhile treating the injury with Fluoxetine, Ibuprofen, and ascorbic acid (FIAA) to increase neurogenesis and oligodendrogenesis. Motor function was assessed using the Montoya Staircase test pre- and post-surgery. Motor capabilities recovered in the contralateral limb, but not in the ipsilateral, and recovery was not significantly affected by treatment. We identified microglia by CX3CR1 and examined its distribution in the adult neurogenic niche, the SVZ …

Strong Inferences About Pain In Invertebrates Require Stronger Evidence, Edgar T. Walters

Animal Sentience

Evidence for sentience in animals distantly related to humans is often sought in observations of behavioral and neural responses to noxious stimuli that would be painful in humans. Most proposed criteria for painful sentience in “lower” animals such as decapod crustaceans have no necessary links to the affective (“suffering”) component of pain. The best evidence for painful affect in animals is learned aversion to stimuli associated with noxious experience, and conditioned preference for contexts associated with relief from aversive consequences of noxious experience, as expressed in voluntary behavior. Such evidence is currently lacking for any invertebrate except octopus.

The Mechanisms Of Axon Initial Segment Alteration Due To Disrupted Glucose Metabolism: A Potential Link To Cognitive Impairment, Duc Van Minh Nguyen

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Cognitive impairment is a serious global health issue due to its widely complicated pathologies that are linked to many diseases, including type 2 diabetes. Yet, detailed mechanisms of cognitive impairment associated with type 2 diabetes are unknown. Evidence suggests type 2 diabetes is associated with disrupted glucose metabolism, elevated methylglyoxal, and axon initial segment (AIS) shortening. Subtle changes of AIS could significantly contribute to neuronal dysfunction in neurological diseases (e.g., cognitive impairment). Utilizing in vitro dissociated mouse cortical cultures, we initially discovered elevated methylglyoxal shortens the AIS length of the immunofluorescent marker AnkyrinG (Griggs et al., 2021). This thesis further …

Boosting Brain Waves Improves Memory, Richard J. Addante, Mairy Yousif, Rosemarie Valencia, Constance Greenwood, Raechel Marino

Psychology Student Publications

Have you ever wanted to improve your memory? Or have you struggled to remember what you studied? Memory uses special patterns of activity in the brain. This experiment tested a new way to create brain wave patterns that help with memory. We wanted to see if we could improve memory by using lights and sounds that teach the brain waves to be in sync. People wore special goggles that made flashes of light and headphones that made beeping noises. This trained the brain through a process called entrainment. The entrainment put the brain in sync at a specific brain wave …

Exercise Training Rescues Increased Brain Isf Aβ Caused By Chronic Isolation Stress In App/Ps1 Transgenic Mice, Lydia M. Holtmann

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive brain disorder that destroys memory and cognition thought to be initiated through the build-up of the amyloid-beta (A) peptide. The A peptide aggregates, slowly forming into insoluble plaque substances that destroy the brain and worsen patient’s symptoms over time. Studies have shown that chronic isolation stress (CIS) increases the A peptide soluble and insoluble levels in the brain and that exercise training decreases these levels in transgenic mouse models of AD. We sought to determine if an exercise training regimen would rescue the increase in Aβ levels caused by CIS in the APP/PS1 transgenic …

The Neurological Asymmetry Of Self-Face Recognition, Aleksandra Janowska, Brianna Balugas, Matthew Pardillo, Victoria Mistretta, Katherine Chavarria, Janet Brenya, Taylor Shelansky, Vanessa Martinez, Kitty Pagano, Nathira Ahmad, Samantha Zorns, Abigail Straus, Sarah Sierra, Julian Keenan

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While the desire to uncover the neural correlates of consciousness has taken numerous directions, self-face recognition has been a constant in attempts to isolate aspects of self-awareness. The neuroimaging revolution of the 1990s brought about systematic attempts to isolate the underlying neural basis of self-face recognition. These studies, including some of the first fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) examinations, revealed a right-hemisphere bias for self-face recognition in a diverse set of regions including the insula, the dorsal frontal lobe, the temporal parietal junction, and the medial temporal cortex. In this systematic review, we provide confirmation of these data (which are …

Mechanisms Of Oscillations And Polyglot Entrainment In Neuronal And Circadian Models, Emel Khan

Dissertations

Entrainment is a type of synchronization in which the period of an endogenous oscillator matches the period of an external forcing signal and a stable phase relationship is maintained between them. Entrainment patterns are described in terms of the number of input oscillations (N) that are phase-locked to a number of output oscillations (M), referred to as N:M patterns. Arnold tongue diagrams are used to depict the regions of N:M entrainment patterns in the input period-amplitude parameter space. Although the entrainment of self-sustained oscillators by periodic forcing are well investigated is a well-studied problem, entrainment of damped oscillators has been …

Igf1-Stimulated Posttraumatic Hippocampal Remodeling Is Not Dependent On Mtor, Erica L. Littlejohn, Anthony J. Desana, Hannah C. Williams, Rudy T. Chapman, Binoy Joseph, Jelena A. Juras, Kathryn E. Saatman

Physiology Faculty Publications

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is stimulated acutely following traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, many hippocampal neurons born after injury develop abnormally and the number that survive long-term is debated. In experimental TBI, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1) promotes hippocampal neuronal differentiation, improves immature neuron dendritic arbor morphology, increases long-term survival of neurons born after TBI, and improves cognitive function. One potential downstream mediator of the neurogenic effects of IGF1 is mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which regulates proliferation as well as axonal and dendritic growth in the CNS. Excessive mTOR activation is posited to contribute to aberrant plasticity related to posttraumatic epilepsy, …

Identifying The Cell Composition And Clonal Diversity Of Supratentorial Ependymoma Using Single Cell Rna-Sequencing, James He

University Scholar Projects

Ependymoma is a primary solid tumor of the central nervous system. Supratentorial ependymoma (ST-EPN), a subtype of ependymomas, is driven by an oncogenic fusion between the ZFTA and RELA genes in 70% of cases. We introduced this fusion into neural progenitor cells of mice embryos via in utero electroporation of a non-viral binary piggyBac transposon system containing ZFTA-RELA. From preliminary data in the LoTurco lab, inducing the expression of ZFTA-RELA into different neural progenitor cells produces tumors of varying lethality and cellular composition. To define the cellular composition and subclonal diversity of ST-EPN tumors, we used single cell RNA-sequencing to …

Identifying The Cell Composition And Clonal Diversity Of Supratentorial Ependymoma Using Single Cell Rna-Sequencing, James He

Honors Scholar Theses

Ependymoma is a primary solid tumor of the central nervous system. Supratentorial ependymoma (ST-EPN), a subtype of ependymomas, is driven by an oncogenic fusion between the ZFTA and RELA genes in 70% of cases. We introduced this fusion into neural progenitor cells of mice embryos via in utero electroporation of a non-viral binary piggyBac transposon system containing ZFTA-RELA. From preliminary data in the LoTurco lab, inducing the expression of ZFTA-RELA into different neural progenitor cells produces tumors of varying lethality and cellular composition. To define the cellular composition and subclonal diversity of ST-EPN tumors, we used single cell RNA-sequencing …