Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Variation In Sign-Tracking And Goal-Tracking Behaviors In A Genetically Diverse Inbred Panel Of Mice, Emily A. Schoenblum

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Aggression In And Out Of The Surrounding Space, Marissa Incer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Social isolation is a type of punishment used to address misbehavior in individuals, such as children with time-outs and prisoners in solitary confinement. It was thought to be an effective method for teaching good behavior or alleviating tense situations. However, this type of punishment may worsen the punished individual’s aggression depending on the environment of isolation. The current study was divided into two experiments. In the first experiment, participants were isolated in a small (2x2 feet) or large (6x6 feet) space to observe if the space alone affected their aggression. In the second experiment, a frustration-inducing task was given to …

The Cognitive & Educational Implications Of Color Use In Drawing To Learn, Juliana F.M. Cantarutti

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Drawing to Learn (D2L) is a learning aid that encourages STEM students to interact with abstract concepts in STEM by sketching. D2L is not an intuitive skill, and researchers strive to provide students with guidelines on how to master this method. One potential way to enhance the D2L method for students is by incorporation of visual cues, specifically color. While many students choose to incorporate color into their models without explicit instruction to do so, we have found no research on: a) why students use color in sketching, b) its effects on D2L. This study used interviews, surveys, and course …

Attentional Dysfunction In Schizophrenia: The Effects Of Dual Orexin Receptor Blockade On An Nmda Receptor Hypofunction Model, Paige Little

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hypofunctionality at the N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor (NMDAR) is a commonly used model of the neurodevelopmental disorder schizophrenia due to the complex circuitry changes that follow NMDAR blockade. While these animal models are very popular for modeling the cognitive deficits seen in schizophrenia, actual treatments for this disorder remain sparse. Orexins (hypocretins) are neuropeptides that are capable of modulating activity along pathways relevant to attention, but are rarely tested for their efficacy in attenuating attentional dysfunction. This study was conducted to determine if systemic administration of the dual orexin receptor antagonist filorexant (MK-6096) was able to attenuate sustained attentional dysfunction induced …

The Role Of Dopamine In Decision Making Processes In Drosophila Melanogaster, Michelle C. Bowers

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Understanding the neural processes that mediate decision making is a relatively new field of investigation in the scientific community. With the ultimate goal of understanding how humans decide between one path and another, simpler models such as Drosophila Melanogaster, the common fruit fly, are often utilized as a way of determining the neural circuits involved in these decision-making processes. One of the most important decisions flies make is the decision of where to lay their eggs (oviposit). Choosing the proper substrate upon which to lay eggs is a crucial decision that can ultimately impact their fecundity. This paper investigates the …

Influence Of Feedback Modality On Motor Sequence Learning, Heba Hussian

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Abstract

Throughout our lifespan we obtain and refine our motor skills with the use of sensory feedback, such as learning how to play a piano. Research has suggested visual feedback is more advantageous to improve motor learning compared to other types of feedback. However, it is unclear if these advantages stem from the feedback being more relevant to the task. We developed an experimental design that tests the influence of visual, auditory and haptic feedback when acquiring a sequence learning task. The study uses a piano-like task, and therefore we propose that learning is enhanced by auditory and haptic feedback, …

Do Visual-Olfactory Associations Strengthen The Real-Object Preference?, Carly V. Goodman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Current knowledge of human object perception relies heavily on studies using images as proxies for real objects. However, real objects are fundamentally different from images. For example, real objects have multisensory properties while images do not. Given that research shows that people look longer at real objects than images of objects, known as the real object preference, and that people look longer at objects when they are presented along with an associated smell, the present pilot study aimed to assess whether visual-olfactory associations contribute to the real-object preference. The present study used a within-subjects design including four participants. Participants …

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation To Assess Motor System Excitability Fluctuations During Auditory Anticipation And Beat Perception, Johannes G.P Teselink

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Humans tend to spontaneously move to the regular beat of musical rhythm. Beat perception is the tendency to sense and anticipate the regular time positions (beats) that movements synchronize with. The neural motor system plays an important role in beat perception, but the dynamics of excitability in the motor system associated with beat perception have not been characterized. This project investigated motor system excitability fluctuations using transcranial magnetic stimulation and electromyography during perception of beat-based and non-beat-based rhythms. We applied single-pulse TMS over the left primary motor cortex of healthy participants as they listened to three types of rhythms that …

Inverse Changes In Ghrelin And A2a Receptor Gene Expression Levels In The Hippocampus Of Heart Failure Canines Following Spinal Cord Stimulation, Benjamin E. Jewett

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Myocardial infarction (MI), often referred to as a heart attack, is a serious health issue in the United States. There is a well-documented link between MI and major depressive disorder (MDD), with a high incidence of MDD occurring after an MI. Overlapping pathologies have been observed within the hippocampus of the brain in animal models of MI and depression. These observations suggest that pathobiological cross-talk between the heart and brain could have a role in the etiology of MDD that occurs after an MI. Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has previously been shown to have both cardioprotective and neuroprotective effects post-MI, …

Neuromodulation Therapy Mitigates Heart Failure Induced Hippocampal Damage, Timothy P. Diperi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. Nearly half of the people diagnosed with heart failure (HF) die within 5 years of diagnosis. Brain abnormalities secondary to CVD have been observed in many discrete regions, including the hippocampus. Nearly 25% of patients with CVD also have major depressive disorder (MDD), and hippocampal dysfunction is a characteristic of both diseases. In this study, the hippocampus and an area of the hippocampal formation, the dentate gyrus (DG), were studied in a canine model of HF. Using this canine HF model previously, we have determined that myocardial …

Where Do I Know That? A Distributed Multimodal Model Of Semantic Knowledge, Kevin M. Stubbs

Undergraduate Honors Theses

As computers have grown more and more powerful, computational modeling has become an increasingly valuable tool for evaluating real world findings. Likewise, brain imaging has become increasingly powerful as is evidenced by recent fMRI findings which support the exciting possibility that semantic memory is segregated by modality in the brain (Goldberg et al., 2006b). The present study utilizes connectionist modeling to put the distributed multi-modal framework of semantic memory to the test, and represents the next step forward in the line of sensory-functional models. This model, based around the McRae et al. (2005) feature production norms, includes individual implementations of …