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Theses and Dissertations

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Full-Text Articles in Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Exploring A Gene Panel For Parkinson’S Disease In An Egyptian Cohort, Asmaa Saeed Gabr Feb 2024

Exploring A Gene Panel For Parkinson’S Disease In An Egyptian Cohort, Asmaa Saeed Gabr

Theses and Dissertations

Parkinson’s disease is a highly heterogeneous disorder characterized by diverse neuropathological features, clinical presentations and progression patterns. In Egypt, Parkinson’s disease incidence rates lie outside the range reported elsewhere. The genetic background to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease has been postulated for a long time. However, Parkinson’s disease has never been systematically investigated in Egypt. This study aimed to explore genetic variants and interactions that are associated with the familial and sporadic forms of Parkinson's disease in an Egyptian cohort. This includes examining variants in PD-related genes, exploring the role of specific genes like MAPT and adjacent genomic regions, and …

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Methodology To Investigate Protein-Protein Interactions Of Jun During Neuronal Differentiation Of Pc12 Cells, Heather L. Leskinen Dec 2023

Methodology To Investigate Protein-Protein Interactions Of Jun During Neuronal Differentiation Of Pc12 Cells, Heather L. Leskinen

Theses and Dissertations

In humans and other mammals, injury to the central nervous system (CNS) can cause a permanent loss of neuronal function, leading to cognitive defects, limb paralysis, and other neurological disabilities. In contrast, studies have shown that some non-mammalian vertebrates like zebrafish, have the remarkable ability to functionally regenerate axons after CNS injury by reactivating and sustaining the expression of regeneration-associated genes (RAGs). Some RAGs encode transcriptional regulators that dimerize to control downstream gene expression necessary for functional axonal recovery. Our lab has previously identified Jun as an important transcriptional regulator of regeneration after optic nerve injury in zebrafish. After axon …

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Potential Moderating Impact Of Circulating Endocannabinoids On Resting State Networks And Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Emily Anne Albertina Dec 2023

Potential Moderating Impact Of Circulating Endocannabinoids On Resting State Networks And Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Emily Anne Albertina

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Traumatic injury increases risk for long-term adverse outcomes such as the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research has found that risk for the development of PTSD after such an injury varies depending on individuals’ race/ethnic group and sex. Although prior work has explored relationships between injury and PTSD in these groups utilizing imaging paradigms (e.g., resting state functional connectivity) and biological paradigms (e.g., the endocannabinoid system), the relationship between these factors has been understudied. The present study explored the potential moderating effect circulating endocannabinoids may have on the relationship between resting state functional connectivity and post traumatic stress …

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Investigation Of The Role Of The G-Protein-Coupled Estrogen Receptor In Memory Consolidation In Gonadectomized Male Mice, Gustavo Dalto Barroso Machado Aug 2023

Investigation Of The Role Of The G-Protein-Coupled Estrogen Receptor In Memory Consolidation In Gonadectomized Male Mice, Gustavo Dalto Barroso Machado

Theses and Dissertations

Estrogens are cholesterol-derived hormones that play crucial physiological and pathological roles in both sexes and across the lifespan. Many research groups have replicated the beneficial roles of 17-beta-estradiol (E2), the most potent estrogen, in memory consolidation in the past decades, even though some mechanisms are still unclear. The rapid effects of E2 in memory formation are attributed to its binding to different estrogen receptors (ER), notably the intracellular receptors ER and ER, as well as the membrane ER called G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER). Previous work from our laboratory demonstrated that acute post-training infusion of E2 into the dorsal hippocampus …

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The Biological Bases Of Political Attachment: Neurobiological Correlates Of Ideology And Partisanship, Carisa Bergner Aug 2023

The Biological Bases Of Political Attachment: Neurobiological Correlates Of Ideology And Partisanship, Carisa Bergner

Theses and Dissertations

To fully understand the foundations of political attachments in an increasingly polarized environment, political scientists must reconcile traditional theories of political attitudes and behavior with insight gained from neurobiological approaches. The purpose of this research is to investigate the neurobiological correlates of strength of political ideology and partisanship, as well as the neurobiological correlates of ideological and partisan orientation. To do so, both structural and functional neuroimaging analyses were conducted on a diverse sample of patients at a Level 1 Trauma Center. Results indicate that strong ideological attachment is significantly associated with decreased volume in the left insula, though partisan …

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Unraveling The Consequence Of Adult Onset Sulfatide Depletion: Its Implications In Myelin And Axonal Heath In The Context Of Neurodegenerative Disease, Elizabeth Dustin Jan 2023

Unraveling The Consequence Of Adult Onset Sulfatide Depletion: Its Implications In Myelin And Axonal Heath In The Context Of Neurodegenerative Disease, Elizabeth Dustin

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple Sclerosis is an immune mediated disease of the CNS. MS is diagnosed through detection of demyelinated regions. However, recent studies demonstrate that Normal Appearing White Matter (NAWM) contains substantial pathology. One such pathology observed in the NAWM is the reduction of sulfatide. The proper stoichiometry of lipids in myelin acts to maintain rapid conduction velocity, provide trophic support to the neuron, and protect the axon from degeneration. We previously characterized a mouse lacking sulfatide’s synthesizing enzyme, CST through constitutive gene disruption and demonstrate that sulfide is required for proper stability of the myelin sheath. However, since MS is typically …

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Mechanistic Insight Into Traumatic Brain Injury Induced Neuronal Membrane Disruption: Cathepsin B Relocalization And A Neun Negative Cortical Neuron Subpopulation, Martina L. Hernandez Jan 2023

Mechanistic Insight Into Traumatic Brain Injury Induced Neuronal Membrane Disruption: Cathepsin B Relocalization And A Neun Negative Cortical Neuron Subpopulation, Martina L. Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a mechanical insult to the head that leads to brain damage and, in turn, causes long-term sensory, motor, cognitive, and affective dysfunction. Diffuse pathologies seen following such injury are associated with these life-altering outcomes that impact the daily lives of TBI survivors. The diffuse pathology that this body of work focuses on is neuronal membrane disruption; it is characterized by increased permeability of the neuron’s plasma membrane. Moreover, our lab had previously found that membrane disruption is exacerbated with intracranial pressure (ICP) elevation. We set out to measure the duration of membrane disruption following injury …

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Deciphering The Firing Patterns Of Hippocampal Neurons During Sharp-Wave Ripples, Kourosh Maboudi Ashmankamachali Dec 2022

Deciphering The Firing Patterns Of Hippocampal Neurons During Sharp-Wave Ripples, Kourosh Maboudi Ashmankamachali

Theses and Dissertations

The hippocampus is essential for learning and memory. Neurons in the rat hippocampus selectively fire when the animal is at specific locations - place fields - within an environment. Place fields corresponding to such place cells tile the entire environment, forming a stable spatial map supporting navigation and planning. Remarkably, the same place cells reactivate together outside of their place fields and in coincidence with sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) - dominant electrical field oscillations (150-250 Hz) in the hippocampus. These offline SWR events frequently occur during quiet wake periods in the middle of exploration and the follow-up slow-wave sleep and are …

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Behavioral And Histological Inflammatory Analysis Of A Single, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury And Repeated Subconcussive Brain Injury Using A Rodent Model., Anna Marie Clay Aug 2022

Behavioral And Histological Inflammatory Analysis Of A Single, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury And Repeated Subconcussive Brain Injury Using A Rodent Model., Anna Marie Clay

Theses and Dissertations

Subconcussive (SC) impacts have become a growing concern within the neuroscience community regarding the immediate and long-lasting effects of sports-related injuries. While a single low-level impact, i.e., a subconcussion, may not cause cerebral perturbations, it has been increasingly recognized that repeated SC exposure can induce deleterious effects. Therefore, determining the lower limits of systematic perturbation resulting from multiple SC impacts is of critical importance in expanding our understanding of cerebral vulnerability and recovery. Currently, there is a lack of correlation between a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and repeated SC impacts with respect to injury biomechanics. Moreover, the cumulative threshold …

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Maternal Nutrient Restriction And Melatonin Supplementation Alter Neurotransmitter Pathways In Bovine Fetal And Placental Tissues, Allison R. Harman Aug 2022

Maternal Nutrient Restriction And Melatonin Supplementation Alter Neurotransmitter Pathways In Bovine Fetal And Placental Tissues, Allison R. Harman

Theses and Dissertations

Nutrient restriction is a relatively common production insult to pregnancy in cattle. Recently, melatonin supplementation has been investigated as a possible therapeutic to rescue the negative effects of nutrient restriction. Neurotransmitters have been implicated as having negative programming effects in mouse and human pregnancies, manifested as metabolic and neurologic disorders. The role of neurotransmitters in fetal development has only begun to be understood in mice and humans. Neurotransmitters have not been analyzed in cattle, much less within the context of a compromised pregnancy. Brangus heifers were allotted to one of four treatments (ADQ-CON, RES-CON, ADQ-MEL, RES-MEL) in either Fall 2019 …

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Probing Hippocampal Activity In Sleep, Sleep Deprivation, And Recovery Sleep, Bapun Giri Aug 2022

Probing Hippocampal Activity In Sleep, Sleep Deprivation, And Recovery Sleep, Bapun Giri

Theses and Dissertations

Long-term memories are established over several hours of sleep following their initial acquisition. Large-scale recordings from the hippocampus have revealed that neurons reactivate or `replay' wake-induced activity in subsequent sleep episodes, leading many to suggest replay as an underlying mechanism for sleep-mediated memory consolidation. In this dissertation, I describe experiments that examine the extent of hippocampal replay during sleep and how replay is affected in the absence of sleep. In Chapter 2, we found that the hippocampus reactivates neuronal patterns expressed during exploration of a novel environment for upto 10 hours in subsequent sleep with a half-maximum timescale of $~$6 …

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Mirnas Levels In A Streptozocin Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Nada Moustafa Jun 2022

Mirnas Levels In A Streptozocin Model Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Nada Moustafa

Theses and Dissertations

Dementia entails a progressive decrease in cognitive functions, with 50%-75% of cases attributed to Alzheimer’s disease (AD); an aging-associated condition characterized by the build-up of tangled phosphorylated Tau (p-Tau) protein and beta-amyloid (Aβ) depositions. Sporadic AD (sAD) is multifactorial in nature, resulting from a combination of environmental and genetic predisposing factors. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a leading risk factor for dementia, and deregulation of brain glucose metabolism is associated with early cognitive affection in sAD. Thus, the diabetogenic agent Streptozotocin (STZ) is used to experimentally create an AD model in animals (STZ-induced sAD), in which abnormalities in cerebral …

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Individual Differences In Structure Learning, Philip Newlin May 2022

Individual Differences In Structure Learning, Philip Newlin

Theses and Dissertations

Humans have a tendency to impute structure spontaneously even in simple learning tasks, however the way they approach structure learning can vary drastically. The present study sought to determine why individuals learn structure differently. One hypothesized explanation for differences in structure learning is individual differences in cognitive control. Cognitive control allows individuals to maintain representations of a task and may interact with reinforcement learning systems. It was expected that individual differences in propensity to apply cognitive control, which shares component processes with hierarchical reinforcement learning, may explain how individuals learn structure differently in a simple structure learning task. Results showed …

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Chronic Adolescent Stress As A Predictive Factor For The Risk Of Developing Ptsd-Like Symptoms In Adulthood, Grace K. Young Jan 2022

Chronic Adolescent Stress As A Predictive Factor For The Risk Of Developing Ptsd-Like Symptoms In Adulthood, Grace K. Young

Theses and Dissertations

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress and trauma based psychological disorder that is defined by the DSM-IV as an anxiety disorder that affects approximately 7.8% of people in the United States. PTSD is when those who suffer a traumatic event have intense and distressing feelings, emotions, and memories for a prolonged period of time after the event. A prominent feature of PTSD is the impaired ability to properly extinguish a fear response after a dangerous trigger or stressor is no longer present, also known as safety learning. Stressors are threats perceived within the environment that activate a response within the …

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The Injury-Induced Neurogenic Response And The Role Of Notch1 In Regulating This Process, Nicole M. Weston Jan 2022

The Injury-Induced Neurogenic Response And The Role Of Notch1 In Regulating This Process, Nicole M. Weston

Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a prevalent problem with an estimated 5 million people suffering from chronic cognitive impairments long after the injury. Following TBI there is a series of pathophysiological changes in the brain including neurogenesis, an important response linking endogenous repair and regeneration. The dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus is a primary neurogenic region within the adult brain where neural stem and progenitor cells (NS/NPCs) reside. Studies using rodent models have shown that cognitive recovery after TBI is associated with new neurons generated from the DG. Thus far, in studies examining post-injury neurogenesis, the regulatory mechanisms, functional …

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Traumatic Brain Injury-Induced Changes Of Immune/Inflammatory Response In The Context Of Predisposition Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Alexandra Pedin Jan 2022

Traumatic Brain Injury-Induced Changes Of Immune/Inflammatory Response In The Context Of Predisposition Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Alexandra Pedin

Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurogenerative disease that affects millions globally. At this time there are no effective treatment options as the primary cause for AD is not fully understood. In addition to old age, genetic predisposition, and certain health conditions, traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been identified as a risk factor for AD. While the pathway that links TBI to AD is still largely unknown, the neuroinflammatory response to both conditions has been connected to the NLRP3 inflammasome. Due to its role in the innate immune system and proinflammatory cytokine mediation, the NLRP3 inflammasome could be a potential …

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Theta Burst Brain Stimulation In Painful Diabetic Neuropathy Patients: Investigating Neural Mechanisms, Bhushan Thakkar Jan 2022

Theta Burst Brain Stimulation In Painful Diabetic Neuropathy Patients: Investigating Neural Mechanisms, Bhushan Thakkar

Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain (CP) is a significant contributor to disability and disease burden globally. In 2019, approximately 50.2 million adults (20.4% of the US population) experienced chronic pain, contributing to $560-635 billion in direct medical costs. In addition, the worldwide prevalence of diabetes mellitus has reached epidemic proportions and is set to increase to 629 million by 2045. Almost 50% of patients with diabetes present with diabetic neuropathy (DN), and one in five patients with diabetes presents with painful DN (pDN) which is the most common cause of neuropathic pain (NP) in the US. Symptomatic treatment is the mainstay of management …

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Viral Injection Of Rna Polymerase Ii-Interacting Protein Rprd2 In The Nucleus Accumbens Induces Anxiety-Like Behavior In Mice, Hannah E. Woolard Jan 2022

Viral Injection Of Rna Polymerase Ii-Interacting Protein Rprd2 In The Nucleus Accumbens Induces Anxiety-Like Behavior In Mice, Hannah E. Woolard

Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety and its related disorders have become increasingly prevalent as more awareness and acceptance of mental illnesses have come to fruition, especially in the light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Anxiety can affect anyone regardless of their age, sex, or social status and is currently the most commonly diagnosed mental illness worldwide (Bandelow & Michaelis, 2015). While there are several effective treatments available, the underlying brain mechanisms that cause anxiety are still largely unknown and further research continues to piece together the complex pathophysiology behind this disease. The use of laboratory animal models, such as mice, to induce and observe …

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Interactions Among Sex, Apolipoprotein E Genotype, And 17-Beta Estradiol In A Mouse Model Of Alzheimer's Disease, Lisa Taxier Dec 2021

Interactions Among Sex, Apolipoprotein E Genotype, And 17-Beta Estradiol In A Mouse Model Of Alzheimer's Disease, Lisa Taxier

Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, yet its cause remains a mystery and no truly effective treatments exist. The high incidence of AD, coupled with its devastating health and economic impacts, highlight the urgent need for continued research into the etiology of this disease (Ernst & Hay, 1994; Rice et al., 1993). Although existing and efficacious treatments for AD are lacking, several risk factors for AD have been identified. One such factor is apolipoprotein E genotype, which is the greatest genetic risk factor for AD (Ertekin-Taner, 2007; van der Flier et al., 2011). Another factor is …

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Effect Of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage On Brain Functional Connectivity And Structural Properties In Trauma-Exposed Adults, Elisabeth Kathleen Webb Dec 2021

Effect Of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage On Brain Functional Connectivity And Structural Properties In Trauma-Exposed Adults, Elisabeth Kathleen Webb

Theses and Dissertations

Though there has been substantial progress towards understanding brain-behavior relationships and characterizing the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, research has not translated as expected into novel prevention and treatment of mental health conditions. One limitation may be the emphasis on individual-level variables (e.g., income) and omission of relevant area-level factors (e.g., neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage). Recently, attention has been directed towards identifying the biological mechanisms by which neighborhoods impact mental health. The chronic stress associated with living in a disadvantaged neighborhood promotes a cascade of maladaptive events, which in turn impact brain structure and functioning. The processes affected by chronic neighborhood stressors …

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Anti-Angiogenic Effects Of Chemotherapeutic Agents And Their Enhancement With Ot-515 And S-Nach, Shimaa Adel Heikal Sep 2021

Anti-Angiogenic Effects Of Chemotherapeutic Agents And Their Enhancement With Ot-515 And S-Nach, Shimaa Adel Heikal

Theses and Dissertations

Chemotherapeutic agents have been used for the treatment of numerous types of tumors with great success. Cisplatin and Doxorubicin are among the well-known chemotherapeutic drugs that showed efficacy against various types of cancers. However, cell resistance and major side effects like chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) are limiting factors in using these compounds. Using a combination or adjuvant compounds with anti-angiogenic effects is one of the strategies suggested to decrease resistance or ameliorate chemotherapeutic toxicity. The present study investigated the anti-angiogenic effects of Cisplatin and Doxorubicin alone and combined with Sulfated non-anticoagulant heparin (S-NACH), a low molecular weight heparin LMWH that …

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Resting State Functional Connectivity In The Default Mode Network: Relationships Between Cannabis Use, Gender, And Cognition In Adolescents And Young Adults, Megan Ritchay Aug 2021

Resting State Functional Connectivity In The Default Mode Network: Relationships Between Cannabis Use, Gender, And Cognition In Adolescents And Young Adults, Megan Ritchay

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit substance in the United States, and nearly 1 in 4 young adults are current cannabis users. The psychoactive component of cannabis, THC, is active at cannabinoid receptors, type 1, or CB1 receptors. CB1 receptors play a critical role in neural development, and chronic cannabis use causes desensitization and downregulation of these receptors. Chronic cannabis use is associated with changes in resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) in the default mode network (DMN) in adolescents and young adults, although results are somewhat inconsistent across studies, likely due to differing methodologies. Additionally, cannabis effects appear …

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Effects Of A Novel, Non-Toxic Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor On Hippocampal Memory Formation, Histone Acetylation, And Bdnf Gene Expression In Male Mice, Sarah Brianna Beamish Aug 2021

Effects Of A Novel, Non-Toxic Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor On Hippocampal Memory Formation, Histone Acetylation, And Bdnf Gene Expression In Male Mice, Sarah Brianna Beamish

Theses and Dissertations

Memory dysfunction is a common symptom of aging, neuropsychiatric disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders, yet truly effective treatments for memory loss do not exist. De novo gene transcription is a molecular requirement for long-term memory formation. The transcription of genes related to synaptic plasticity and learning are regulated in part by histone acetylation, an epigenetic mechanism that regulates chromatin accessibility. Pharmacological compounds that maintain histone acetylation, called histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi), enhance memory by preventing deacetylation of core histone proteins, which initiates binding of transcriptional machinery to open chromatin. Therefore, HDACi are potentially promising therapeutics that could be used to prevent …

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Resting-State Versus Breath-Hold For Testing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Integrity In Pre-Surgical Planning, Nooshin Jafari Fesharaki Aug 2021

Resting-State Versus Breath-Hold For Testing Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Integrity In Pre-Surgical Planning, Nooshin Jafari Fesharaki

Theses and Dissertations

The neuro-vascular coupling mechanism responsible for blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals can be focally disrupted by various pathological factors (such as brain tumors) while leaving the underlying neurons functionally intact. Such neuro-vascular uncoupling (NVU) can pose serious complications for clinical use of fMRI. Mapping of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), which is a measure of the dilatory function of cerebral vasculature, can be a useful approach for detecting potential NVU. The widely-accepted approach for non-invasive CVR mapping requires the patient to perform a breath-hold challenge, which may have practical disadvantages for many patient populations. Thus, a …

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Neural Substrates Of Fear Generalization And Its Associations With Anxiety And Intolerance Of Uncertainty, Ashley Ann Huggins Aug 2021

Neural Substrates Of Fear Generalization And Its Associations With Anxiety And Intolerance Of Uncertainty, Ashley Ann Huggins

Theses and Dissertations

Fear generalization - the tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening due to perceptual similarity to a learned threat – is an adaptive process. Overgeneralization, however, is maladaptive and has been implicated in a number of anxiety disorders. Neuroimaging research has indicated several regions sensitive to effects of generalization, including regions involved in fear excitation (e.g., amygdala, insula) and inhibition (e.g., ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Research has suggested several other small brain regions may play an important role in this process (e.g., hippocampal subfields, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis [BNST], habenula), but, to date, these regions have not been examined …

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Behavioral And Neural Correlates Of Episodic Memory Regulation, Mrinmayi Kulkarni Aug 2021

Behavioral And Neural Correlates Of Episodic Memory Regulation, Mrinmayi Kulkarni

Theses and Dissertations

Episodic memory retrieval, while critical for daily living, needs to be regulated to maintain goal-directed behavior. Past work has shown that episodic memory regulation engages brain regions involved in cognitive control, such as the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. These regions interact with the medial temporal lobe structures to control retrieval processes. In the current study, I paired eye-tracking, a sensitive index of memory, with fMRI in a novel paradigm to address several open questions in the field of episodic memory regulation. Participants initially encoded three celebrity faces and three tools with multiple indoor and outdoor scenes. In a subsequent …

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Longitudinal Changes In Resting-State Functional Connectivity Of The Salience Network Among Individuals At-Risk For Ptsd Development, Kyrie Sellnow May 2021

Longitudinal Changes In Resting-State Functional Connectivity Of The Salience Network Among Individuals At-Risk For Ptsd Development, Kyrie Sellnow

Theses and Dissertations

Predicting post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a traumatic event has been a focus of recent neuroimaging research in the hopes of identifying key biomarkers that contribute to the disorder’s development. One possibility relies on understanding the connectivity between intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs), including the salience network (SN). Prior research has consistently identified hyperconnectivity among SN regions among those with chronic PTSD, and this study aimed to examine the role of SN connectivity over time on PTSD symptom development. To do so, this study recruited individuals presenting to the Emergency Department with traumatic injuries to complete two resting-state fMRI scans: one …

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Behavioral, Physiological, And Molecular Characterization Of Long-Term Administration Of A Novel Estrogen Receptor Beta Agonist In A Mouse Model Of Menopause, Aaron William Fleischer May 2021

Behavioral, Physiological, And Molecular Characterization Of Long-Term Administration Of A Novel Estrogen Receptor Beta Agonist In A Mouse Model Of Menopause, Aaron William Fleischer

Theses and Dissertations

The menopausal loss of circulating hormones, including estrogens, is associated with negative symptoms, such as hot flashes, anxiety and depression, cognitive decline, and weight gain. Although estrogenic hormone therapies (HT) prevent many of the negative symptoms related to the menopausal transition, these same therapies are associated with increased health risks, such as the development of breast and ovarian cancers, which is mediated by the activation of the a (ERa), but not b (ERb), estrogen receptor isoform. Furthermore, ERb agonism has previously been shown to reduce preclinical indices of hot flashes, memory decline, anxiety, and depression. As most ERb agonists are …

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Functional Responding To Appetitive Faces Among Cannabis-Using Adolescents And Young Adults, Ryan Michael Sullivan May 2021

Functional Responding To Appetitive Faces Among Cannabis-Using Adolescents And Young Adults, Ryan Michael Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations

Cannabis use is associated with attenuated reward signaling, yet few studies have examined this relationship when viewing rewarding appetitive faces while undergoing functional neuroimaging. Furthermore, few neuroimaging analyses have examined the moderating role of gender on task-based fMRI outcomes. This study explored functional BOLD response elicited by appetitive faces while engaged in an affective go/no-go task, and specifically investigated the differences between cannabis-using and control groups, whether gender moderate findings, and brain-behavior associations. Participants (ages 16-26 years) were scanned after at least 3-weeks of monitored abstinence (cannabis-using group = 35; control group = 33). The findings demonstrated aberrant activation in …

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Neural Correlates Underlying The Interactions Between Anxiety And Cannabis Use In Predicting Motor Response Inhibition, Richard Ward May 2021

Neural Correlates Underlying The Interactions Between Anxiety And Cannabis Use In Predicting Motor Response Inhibition, Richard Ward

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to effectively withhold an inappropriate response is a critical feature of cognitive control. Prior research indicates alterations in neural processes required for motor response inhibition in anxious individuals, including those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and those who engage in regular cannabis use. However, thus far most research has examined how anxiety-related symptoms and cannabis use influence response inhibition in isolation of one another. The current study examined the interactions between anxious symptomology and recent cannabis use in a sample that recently experienced a traumatic event using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the completion of a Stop-Signal …

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