Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Pdi, Reactive Oxygen Species Stress And Polyphenolic Phytochemicals: Implications For Neurodegenerative Diseases, Rituraj Pal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

PDI, protein disulfide isomerase, is one of the most versatile proteins and highly expressed in mammalian cells because there is a vast number of proteins that must undergo processing before secretion to their final destinations. PDI has several functions: oxidation of nascent proteins and isomerization of existing disulfide bonds. It also possesses chaperone activity and participates in protein degradation. Because of its structure, PDI can exist in a reduced or oxidized form. In mammalian cells it is mostly reduced due to the high demand of disulfide bond shuffling of secreted proteins within the ER, PDI a, a', and b' posses …

A Study Of Possible Pre-Cognitive Advantages Of Bilingualism, Marisela Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Past research has suggested that second language acquisition has a beneficial effect on the development of inhibitory control processes in children and adults. This has been referred to as the "bilingual advantage" and is most commonly quantified using the Simon task. Whether the bilingual advantage extends to precognitive mechanisms has not yet been examined. The goals of this study were to examine the bilingual advantage in university students; and to examine whether the bilingual advantage extends to the precognitive filtering mechanism of sensorimotor gating. It was predicted that, as compared to monolinguals, bilingual university students would have greater inhibitory control, …

Does Type Of Stimulus Influence Task-Irrelevant Evaluative Categorization Processes?, Guadalupe Corral

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The effect of stimulus type on task-irrelevant evaluative categorization was examined in two separate studies by using the P3 component from event-related brain potentials. The first study presented idiosyncratic stimuli consisting of individuals that were rated by participants as either positive or negative within sequences of pictorial and verbal stimuli. The second study presented sequences of novel and familiar stimuli consisting of previously normed unattractive and neutral individuals. It was hypothesized that pictures would elicit task-irrelevant evaluative categorization processes and so would novel stimuli (relative to words and familiar stimuli, respectively). Task-irrelevance was examined by assessing P3 peak amplitude to …

Characterization Of The Behavioral And Neurochemical Effects Of Nicotine Withdrawal In Adolescent And Adult Rats., Luis Alberto Natividad

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies have demonstrated that the behavioral effects of nicotine withdrawal are lower in adolescent versus adult rats. However, the neurochemical mechanisms that mediate these developmental differences are presently unclear. Much work has shown that nicotine reward is mediated via enhanced dopamine neurotransmission in the mesolimbic pathway which originates in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and terminates in several forebrain structures including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). More recently, studies have shown that nicotine withdrawal produces a decrease in NAcc dopamine transmission, an effect that is believed to serve as a neurochemical marker of withdrawal in adult rodents. The goal of …

Effect Of Redox-Cycling Agents On Nitric Oxide Synthase Activity In Vitro And Modulation Of Protein Expression In Vivo: No Nitric Oxide Synthase In Mitochondria, Priya Venkatakrishnan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation describes studies conducted in three areas dealing with the interaction of redox-active compounds with the flavin- and heme- containing enzyme, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (NOS). They are as follows:

I. Studies were initiated using extracts from several varieties of tobacco to identify constituent(s) that could interact with nNOS. Results from [¹⁴C]-L-arginine to [¹⁴C]-L-citrulline conversion assays to which tobacco extracts were individually added, indicate that there are nNOS inhibitors present in tobacco and they are non-polar, lipophilic and non-volatile in nature. In addition, results from assays in which the tobacco-derived redox-active compound, 2,3,6- …