Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

The Electrophysiological And Neuropsychological Organization Of Long Term Memory, Richard J. Addante

Psychology Faculty Publications

The electrophysiological correlates of recognition memory retrieval were examined in order to identify the neural conditions that precede accurate memory retrieval, characterize the processes that contribute to high and low confidence memory responses, and determine which memory processes are impaired after brain injury. Human electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded during recognition confidence and source memory judgments in three experiments. In Experiment 1, mid-frontal pre-stimulus theta oscillations were found to precede the stimulus presentation of items that were successfully recollected, but they were not found to be predictive of item familiarity. Moreover, during stimulus presentation, recollection was associated with an increase in …

Change Detection Memory In Rhesus Monkeys And Humans, Lauren C. Elmore

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is the storage of visual information over a brief time period (usually a few seconds or less). Over the past decade, the most popular task for studying VSTM in humans has been the change detection task. In this task, subjects must remember several visual items per trial in order to identify a change following a brief delay interval. Results from change detection tasks have shown that VSTM is limited; humans are only able to accurately hold a few visual items in mind over a brief delay. However, there has been much debate in regard to the …

The Impact Of Category Separation On Unsupervised Categorization, Shawn W. Ell, Gregoryh F. Ashby

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Most previous research on unsupervised categorization has used unconstrained tasks in which no instructions are provided about the underlying category structure or the stimuli are not clustered into categories. Few studies have investigated constrained tasks in which the goal is to learn pre-defined stimulus clusters in the absence of feedback. These studies have generally reported good performance when the stimulus clusters could be separated by a one-dimensional rule. The present study investigated the limits of this ability. Results suggest that even when two stimulus clusters are as widely separated as in previous studies, performance is poor if within-category variance on …

Serotonin, Motivation, And Playfulness In The Juvenile Rat, Stephen M. Siviy, Loren M. Deron, Chelsea R. Kasten

Psychology Faculty Publications

The effects of the selective 5HT1A agonist 8-OH-DPAT were assessed on the play behavior of juvenile rats. When both rats of the test pair were comparably motivated to play, the only significant effect of 8-OH-DPAT was for play to be reduced at higher doses. When there was a baseline asymmetry in playful solicitation due to a differential motivation to play and only one rat of the pair was treated, low doses of 8-OH-DPAT resulted in a collapse of asymmetry in playful solicitations. It did not matter whether the rat that was treated initially accounted for more nape contacts or fewer …

In Search Of The Neurobiological Substrates For Social Playfulness In Mammalian Brains, Stephen M. Siviy, Jaak Panksepp

Psychology Faculty Publications

Play behavior is a fundamental and intrinsic neurobehavioral process in the mammalian brain. Using rough-and-tumble play in the juvenile rat as a model system to study mammalian playfulness, some of the relevant neurobiological substrates for this behavior have been identified, and in this review this progress. A primary-process executive circuit for play in the rat that includes thalamic intralaminar nuclei, frontal cortex and striatum can be gleaned from these data. Other neural areas that may interact with this putative circuit include amygdala, ventral hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray (PAG), and deep tectum, as well as ascending dopamine systems which participate in all …

Insightful Problem Solving In An Asian Elephant, Preston Foerder, Marie Galloway, Tony Barthel, Donald E. Moore Iii, Diana Reiss

Publications and Research

The ‘‘aha’’ moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly, elephants, thought to be highly intelligent, have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior, a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube, on …

Psychological And Social Correlates Of Hiv Status Disclosure: The Significance Of Stigma Visibility, Sarah E. Sutterheim, Arjan E. R. Bos, John B. Pryor, Maartje Liebregts, Herman P. Schaalma, Ronald Brands

Faculty Publications – Psychology

HIV-related stigma, psychological distress, self-esteem, and social support were investigated in a sample comprising people who have concealed their HIV status to all but a selected few (limited disclosers), people who could conceal but chose to be open (full disclosers), and people who had visible symptoms that made concealing difficult (visibly stigmatized). The visibly stigmatized and full disclosers reported significantly more stigma experiences than limited disclosers, but only the visibly stigmatized reported more psychological distress, lower self-esteem, and less social support than limited disclosers. This suggests that having a visible stigma is more detrimental than having a concealable stigma. Differences …

Genetics And Criminal Responsibility, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

Some believe that genetics threatens privacy and autonomy and will eviscerate the concept of human nature. Despite the astonishing research advances, however, none of these dire predictions and no radical transformation of the law have occurred.

Dysfunctional Play And Dopamine Physiology In The Fischer 344 Rat, Stephen M. Siviy, Cynthia A. Crawford, Garnik Akopian, John P. Walsh

Psychology Faculty Publications

Juvenile Fischer 344 rats are known to be less playful than other inbred strains, although the neurobiological substrate(s) responsible for this phenotype is uncertain. In the present study, Fischer 344 rats were compared to the commonly used outbred Sprague-Dawley strain on several behavioral and physiological parameters in order to ascertain whether the lack of play may be related to compromised activity of brain dopamine (DA) systems. As expected, Fischer 344 rats were far less playful than Sprague-Dawley rats, with Fischer 344 rats less likely to initiate playful contacts with a playful partner and less likely to respond playfully to these …

“What” And “Where” In Auditory Sensory Processing: A High-Density Electrical Mapping Study Of Distinct Neural Processes Underlying Sound Object Recognition And Sound Localization, Victoria M. Leavitt, Sophie Molholm, Manuel Gomez-Ramirez, John J. Foxe

Publications and Research

Functionally distinct dorsal and ventral auditory pathways for sound localization (WHERE) and sound object recognition (WHAT) have been described in non-human primates. A handful of studies have explored differential processing within these streams in humans, with highly inconsistent findings. Stimuli employed have included simple tones, noise bursts, and speech sounds, with simulated left–right spatial manipulations, and in some cases participants were not required to actively discriminate the stimuli. Our contention is that these paradigms were not well suited to dissociating processing within the two streams. Our aim here was to determine how early in processing we …

Adaptive Significance Of Natural Variations In Maternal Care In Rats: A Translational Perspective, Annaliese K. Beery, Darlene D. Francis

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

A wealth of data from the last fifty years documents the potency of early life experiences including maternal care on developing offspring. A majority of this research has focused on the developing stress axis and stress-sensitive behaviors in hopes of identifying factors impacting resilience and risk-sensitivity. The power of early life experience to shape later development is profound and has the potential to increase fitness of individuals for their environments. Current findings in a rat maternal care paradigm highlight the complex and dynamic relation between early experiences and a variety of outcomes. In this review we propose adaptive hypotheses for …

Assessment Of Suny Upstate Medical University’S Child Telepsychiatry Consultation Program, Mary E. Lau

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Objectives: The project assesses the child telepsychiatry services provided by SUNY Upstate psychiatrists to several county mental health clinics in central New York State. Method: Data for forty-five patients was extracted from pre-consultation forms completed by the referring clinic and post-consultation summaries completed by the Upstate psychiatrists that occurred between July 13^th, 2009 and May 12^th, 2010. The study identified characteristics of patients for whom telepsychiatry consultations were sought, reviewed recommendations provided by the telepsychiatry consultant, and noted recommended changes in therapy and medication. Results: Analysis of the data showed that there was a large variation …

Dissociable And Dynamic Components Of Cognitive Control: A Developmental Electrophysiological Investigation, Matthew Waxer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One standard task used to investigate the development of cognitive control is the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS). Performance and patterns of brain activity associated with the DCCS show continued age-related advances into early adolescence. According to many theoretical accounts, the DCCS places demands on a single underlying executive control process. Three experiments examined the possibility that the DCCS places demands on multiple control processes that follow distinct developmental trajectories. In Experiment 1, rule switching and conflict processing made orthogonal contributions to DCCS performance. Rule switching was associated with a cue-locked late frontal negativity (LFN) event-related potential (ERP) and conflict …

Analysis Of Morris Water Maze Data With Bayesian Statistical Methods, Maxym V. Myroshnychenko, Anton Westveld, Jefferson Kinney

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Neuroscientists commonly use a Morris Water Maze to assess learning in rodents. In his kind of a maze, the subjects learn to swim toward a platform hidden in opaque water as they orient themselves according to the cues on the walls. This protocol presents a challenge to statistical analysis, because an artificial cut-off must be set for those experimental subjects that do not reach the platform so as they do not drown from exhaustion. This fact leads to the data being right censored. In our experimental data, which compares learning in rodents that have chemically induced symptoms of schizophrenia to …

Common And Distinct Mechanisms Of Cognitive Flexibility In Prefrontal Cortex, Chobok Kim, Nathan F. Johnson, Sara E. Cilles, Brian T. Gold

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

The human ability to flexibly alternate between tasks represents a central component of cognitive control. Neuroimaging studies have linked task switching with a diverse set of prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions, but the contributions of these regions to various forms of cognitive flexibility remain largely unknown. Here, subjects underwent functional brain imaging while they completed a paradigm that selectively induced stimulus, response, or cognitive set switches in the context of a single task decision performed on a common set of stimuli. Behavioral results indicated comparable reaction time costs associated with each switch type. Domain-general task-switching activation was observed in the inferior …

The Faculty For Undergraduate Neuroscience: Learning Lessons Since 1991, Eric P. Wiertelak, Julio J. Ramirez, Jennifer R. Yates

Eric Wiertelak

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Neurofeedback On Neuropsychological Functioning In An Adult With Autism, Michael J. Lucido

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Autism spectrum condition (ASC) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts physiological processes, cognition, functional behaviors, social-communication, and often has comorbidities. One approach gaining empirical support for ASC treatment is neurofeedback. Neurofeedback uses operant conditioning to normalize cerebral activity through auditory and visual reinforcement. Live Z-score Training (LZT) has become the latest advancement in neurofeedback. There is no published research to date on LZT neurofeedback in adulthood ASC. The purpose of this study was to evaluate LZT's impact on neuropsychological measures in an adult with ASC. A multiple baseline single-case research design was used with a convenience sample of one …

Psychiatric Disorders As Potential Predictors In Medical Disease Development, Linda Kay Taliaferro

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Millions of individuals suffer disability or death from immune-based inflammatory diseases. If psychiatric disorders could be empirically linked to the prediction of immune-based inflammatory diseases, there would be a basis for promoting disease prevention measures for individuals diagnosed with one of four psychiatric disorders. Psychoneuroimmunology provided the theoretical base for understanding emotionally induced medical disease development. In this quantitative study, a parallel archival research design was used to investigate the degree to which generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression recurrent, and dysthymic disorder predicted the presence of atherosclerosis, cardiovascular heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and type II diabetes. …

Reflexivity In Financial Markets: A Neuroeconomic Examination Of Uncertainty And Cognition In Financial Markets, Steven Pikelny

Senior Projects Spring 2011

Financial markets exist to disperse the risks of an unknown future in an economy. But for this process to work in an optimal fashion, investors – and subsequently markets – must have a way to interpret uncertainty. The investor rationality and market efficiency literature utilizes a methodology inadequate to address this fact, so I supplement it with the perspectives of epistemology, economic sociology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. This approach suggests that what is commonly viewed as market “inefficiency” is not necessarily caused by investor irrationality, but rather by the inherent nature of the epistemological problem faced by …

Physiology Of Yawning : Proximate Mechanisms Supporting An Ultimate Function, Melanie Lee Shoup-Knox

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Recent research suggests that yawning functions to cool the brain during periods of mild hyperthermia. Evidence for this hypothesis is largely behavioral, and includes reports of increased yawning during increases in ambient temperature and times of stress as well as an amelioration of yawning upon nasal breathing and forehead cooling. Little research has been published on the physiological mechanisms supporting a brain cooling function, however. The current set of studies explores human and animal physiological parameters in search of evidence of brain cooling during yawning. In humans, heart rate, skin temperature, and skin conductance findings suggest that yawning involves an …

The Role Of Androstane Neurosteroids In Alcohol-Mediated Social Behavior, Jason J. Paris

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Androgenic steroids, such as testosterone, may influence the propensity for aggression in both people and animals. Some of testosterone's effects on aggression may be due, in part, to its metabolic products that are 5á-reduced and 3á-hydroxylated to form, 3á-androstanediol (3á-diol), which can also enhance aggression in mice. Notably, alcohol (EtOH) consumption facilitates aggression in people and animals, particularly among those predisposed to act aggressively. In rats, EtOH can increase 3á-diol in prefrontal cortex, which may facilitate aggression. The present work aimed to elucidate the role of 3á-diol for EtOH-enhanced aggression. We hypothesized that EtOH would enhance inter-male aggression, social dominance, …

Differentiable Cortical Networks For Inferences Concerning People’S Intentions Versus Physical Causality, Robert Mason, Marcel Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Task-Invariant Brain Responses To The Social Value Of Faces., Alex Todorov, Chris Said, Nicholas Oosterhof, Andrew Engell

Andrew Engell

Autism Spectrum Traits In The Typical Population Predict Structure And Function In The Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus., Elisabeth Von Dem Hagen, Lauri Nummenmaa, R Yu, Andrew Engell, Michael Ewbank, Andy Calder

Andrew Engell

Serotonin Transporter (5-Httlpr) Genotype And Childhood Trauma Are Associated With Individual Differences In Decision Making, Scott Stoltenberg

Scott F. Stoltenberg

The factors that influence individual differences in decision making are not yet fully characterized, but convergent evidence is accumulating that implicates serotonin (5-HT) system function. Therefore, both genes and environments that influence serotonin function are good candidates for association with risky decision making. In the present study we examined associations between common polymorphisms in the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4; 5-HTTLPR and rs25531), the experience of childhood trauma and decision making on the Iowa gambling task (IGT) in 391 (64.5% female) healthy Caucasian adults. Homozygosity for the 5-HTTLPR L allele was associated with riskier decision making in the first block of …

Autonomy Of Lower-Level Perception From Global Processing In Autism: Evidence From Brain Activation And Functional Connectivity, Yanni Liu, Vladimir L. Cherkassky, Nancy J. Minshew, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Inter-Regional Brain Communication And Its Disturbance In Autism, Sarah E. Schipul, Timothy A. Keller, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Quantitative Modeling Of The Neural Representation Of Objects: How Semantic Feature Norms Can Account For Fmri Activation, Kai-Min Kevin Chang, Tom Mitchell, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Individual Differences In The Neural Basis Of Causal Inferencing, Chantel S. Prat, Robert A. Mason, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Commonality Of Neural Representations Of Words And Pictures, Svetlana V. Shinkareva, Vincente L. Malave, Robert A. Mason, Tom M. Mitchell, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.