Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Mechanisms Of Primate Working Memory, Charles Damian Holmes

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

One of the defining features of the behavior of many animal species is the ability to retain and utilize information from the environment even after it is gone. The encoding and utilization of information on short time scales is referred to as working memory. It is not yet fully understood how the brain accomplishes working memory.

This dissertation presents three studies that help to characterize the working memory system of primates. All three studies involve primates performing saccades during a spatial memory task. The first study demonstrates that while the local field potential power is contralaterally tuned (i.e., power is …

Development Of Noninvasive Biomarkers For Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy, Dinal Jayasekera

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) represents the most common cause of chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) in adults. Many patients with symptomatic CSM will experience a decline in neurological function and consequently undergo surgical decompression. Unfortunately, surgeons are unable to adequately counsel patients about the benefits of surgery because the natural history of disease and outcome after decompression vary widely among patients. This can hinder the decision-making capacity of patients and physicians. Therefore, we require additional tools to help guide therapy and counsel patients with CSM. Noninvasive biomarkers present valuable potential as predictors of a patient’s recovery in the long term. …

Anti-Amyloid Chimeric Antigen Receptor Macrophages For Alzheimer's Disease Immunotherapy, Qiuyun Pan

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. None of the available drugs can cure the disease. Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) macrophages, because of their phagocytic activity, have potential as a cellular treatment for amyloid aggregation. In this study, we generated an anti-amyloid CAR hematopoietic progenitor cell line. By inducing the progenitor cell line to differentiate into macrophages, we show that the anti-amyloid CAR-Macrophage has enhanced specific phagocytic activity towards amyloid in in vitro experiments. In addition, in ex vivo experiments, anti-amyloid CAR significantly reduces the plaque load on brain slice from APP/PS1 mice when compared to a non-targeted …