Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Cell Specific Control Of The Pallidostriatal Pathway, Shubha Verma '19

Student Publications & Research

Parkinson’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder of the basal ganglia. The main cause for Parkinson’s Disease is the depletion of dopamine, a neurotransmitter. The basal ganglia contains four major nuclei: the substantia nigra, the subthalamic nucleus, the external globus pallidus, and the striatum. These nuclei communicate with each other by the use of neurons.

Hyperhomocysteinemia As A Risk Factor For Vascular Contributions To Cognitive Impairment And Dementia, Brittani R. Price, Donna M. Wilcock, Erica M. Weekman

Physiology Faculty Publications

Behind only Alzheimer’s disease, vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) is the second most common cause of dementia, affecting roughly 10–40% of dementia patients. While there is no cure for VCID, several risk factors for VCID, such as diabetes, hypertension, and stroke, have been identified. Elevated plasma levels of homocysteine, termed hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy), are a major, yet underrecognized, risk factor for VCID. B vitamin deficiency, which is the most common cause of HHcy, is common in the elderly. With B vitamin supplementation being a relatively safe and inexpensive therapeutic, the treatment of HHcy-induced VCID would seem straightforward; however, …

Heat Shock Protein 40 And Immune Function In Altered Gravity, Amber M. Paul, Brooke D. Shepard, Sharmila Bhattacharya

Publications

In space, astronauts are more susceptible to pathogens, viral reactivation and immunosuppression, which poses limits to their health and the mission. Interestingly, during space flight, stress-inducible heat shock proteins (HSP) are robustly induced, and the overexpression of HSPs have been implicated in immune dysregulation, therefore HSPs may be critically involved in regulating immune homeostasis. HSP40/DNAJ1 plays a major role in proper protein translation and folding. Its loss of function has been implicated in susceptibility to microbial infection, while its overexpression has been implicated in autoimmunity, collectively suggesting its complicated, but necessary, role in maintaining immunological function. To determine the role …

Neutrophil To Lymphocyte Ratio: A Prognostic Indicator For Astronaut Health, Amber M. Paul, Siddhita D. Mhatre, Egle Cekanaviciute, Ann-Sofie Schreurs, Candice G.T. Tahimic, Ruth K. Globus, Brian Crucian, Sharmila Bhattacharya

Publications

Short-term and long-term spaceflight missions can cause immune system dysfunction in astronauts. Recent studies indicate elevated white blood cells (WBC) and polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) in astronaut blood, along with unchanged or reduced lymphocyte counts, and reduced T cell function, during short-(days) and long-(months) term spaceflight. A high PMN to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) can acts as a strong predictor of poor prognosis in cancer, and as a biomarker for subclinical inflammation in humans and chronic stress in mouse models, however, the NLR has not yet been identified as a predictor of astronaut health during spaceflight. For this, complete blood cell count …

Developmental Perceptual Impairments: Cases When Tone-Deafness And Prosopagnosia Co-Occur, Sébastien Paquette, Hui C. Li, Sherryse L. Corrow, Stephanie S. Buss, Jason J.S. Barton, Gottfried Schlaug

Psychology Faculty Publications

Studies have shown subtle gray and white matter abnormalities in subjects with several developmental disorders including prosopagnosia, tone-deafness, and dyslexia. Correlational evidence suggests that tone-deafness and dyslexia tend to co-occur, suggesting a link between these two developmental disorders. However, it is not known whether tone-deafness can also be associated with other developmental disorders such as impaired face recognition or prosopagnosia. We addressed this question by assessing face perception abilities in a group of tone-deaf individuals and matched non-tone-deaf subjects. The Cambridge (CFMT) and the Warrington (WRMT) face memory tests were used to assess face processing in the combined group of …

Stress-Induced Heat Shock Protein 40 And Immune Function In Altered Gravity, Amber M. Paul, Brooke D. Shepard, Sharmila Bhattacharya

Publications

In space, astronauts are more susceptible to pathogens, viral reactivation and immunosuppression, which poses limits to their health and the mission. Interestingly, during space flight, stress-inducible heat shock proteins (HSP) are robustly induced, and the overexpression of HSPs have been implicated in immune dysregulation, therefore HSPs may be critically involved in regulating immune homeostasis. HSP40/DNAJ1 plays a major role in proper protein translation and folding. Its loss of function has been implicated in susceptibility to microbial infection, while its overexpression has been implicated in autoimmunity, collectively suggesting its complicated, but necessary, role in maintaining immunological function. To determine the role …

Manipulation Of Human Verticality Using High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, Taiza E. G. Santos, Diandra B. Favoretto, Iman Ghodratti Toostani, Diego C. Nascimento, Brunna P. Rimoli, Eduardo Bergonzoni, Tenysson Will Lemos, Dennis Quangvinh Truong, Alexandre C. B. Delbem, Bahador Makkiabadi, Renato Moraes, Francisco Louzada, Marom Bikson, Joao P. Leite, Dylan J. Edwards

Publications and Research

Background: Using conventional tDCS over the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) we previously reported that it is possible to manipulate subjective visual vertical (SVV) and postural control. We also demonstrated that high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) can achieve substantially greater cortical stimulation focality than conventional tDCS. However, it is critical to establish dose-response effects using well-defined protocols with relevance to clinically meaningful applications.

Objective: To conduct three pilot studies investigating polarity and intensity-dependent effects of HD-tDCS over the right TPJ on behavioral and physiological outcome measures in healthy subjects. We additionally aimed to establish the feasibility, safety, and tolerability of this stimulation protocol.

Methods: …

Role Of The Fractalkine Receptor In Cns Autoimmune Inflammation: New Approach Utilizing A Mouse Model Expressing The Human Cx3cr1I249/M280 Variant, Sandra M. Cardona, Sangwon V. Kim, Kaira A. Church, Vanessa O. Torres, Ian A. Cleary, Andrew S. Mendiola, Stephen P. Saville, Stephanie S. Watowich, Jan Parker-Thornburg, Alejandro Soto-Ospina, Richard M. Ransohoff, Astrid E. Cardona

Peer Reviewed Articles

Multiple sclerosis (MS), an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) is the leading cause of non-traumatic neurological disability in young adults. Immune mediated destruction of myelin and oligodendrocytes is considered the primary pathology of MS, but progressive axonal loss is the major cause of neurological disability. In an effort to understand microglia function during CNS inflammation, our laboratory focuses on the fractalkine/CX3CR1 signaling as a regulator of microglia neurotoxicity in various models of neurodegeneration. Fractalkine (FKN) is a transmembrane chemokine expressed in the CNS by neurons and signals through its unique receptor CX3CR1 present in microglia. During …

Leukemia Inhibitory Factor Modulates The Peripheral Immune Response In A Rat Model Of Emergent Large Vessel Occlusion, Stephanie M. Davis, Lisa A. Collier, Edric D. Winford, Christopher C. Leonardo, Craig T. Ajmo Jr., Elspeth A. Foran, Timothy J. Kopper, John C. Gensel, Keith R. Pennypacker

Neurology Faculty Publications

Background: The migration of peripheral immune cells and splenocytes to the ischemic brain is one of the major causes of delayed neuroinflammation after permanent large vessel stroke. Other groups have demonstrated that leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), a cytokine that promotes neural cell survival through upregulation of antioxidant enzymes, promotes an anti-inflammatory phenotype in several types of immune cells. The goal of this study was to determine whether LIF treatment modulates the peripheral immune response after stroke.

Methods: Young male (3 month) Sprague-Dawley rats underwent sham surgery or permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Animals were administered LIF (125 μg/kg) or …

Hyperphosphorylation Of Tau Associates With Changes In Its Function Beyond Microtubule Stability, Alejandra D. Alonso, Leah S. Cohen, Christopher Corbo, Viktoriya Morozova, Abdeslem Elldrissi, Greg R. Phillips, Frida E. Kleiman

Publications and Research

Tau is a neuronal microtubule associated protein whose main biological functions are to promote microtubule self-assembly by tubulin and to stabilize those already formed. Tau also plays an important role as an axonal microtubule protein. Tau is an amazing protein that plays a key role in cognitive processes, however, deposits of abnormal forms of tau are associated with several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer disease (AD), the most prevalent, and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), the most recently associated to abnormal tau. Tau post-translational modifications (PTMs) are responsible for its gain of toxic function. Alonso et al. …

Entrainment Enhances Theta Oscillations And Improves Episodic Memory, Brooke M. Roberts, Alex Clarke, Richard J. Addante, Charan Ranganath

Psychology Faculty Publications

Neural oscillations in the theta band have been linked to episodic memory, but it is unclear whether activity patterns that give rise to theta play a causal role in episodic retrieval. Here, we used rhythmic auditory and visual stimulation to entrain neural oscillations to assess whether theta activity contributes to successful memory retrieval. In two separate experiments, human subjects studied words and were subsequently tested on memory for the words ('item recognition') and the context in which each had been previously studied ('source memory'). Between study and test, subjects in the entrainment groups were exposed to audiovisual stimuli designed to …

Combinatorial Geometry Of Threshold-Linear Networks, Christopher Langdon

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Decision Making In A Changing Environment, Alan Veliz-Cuba

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Hopfield Networks: Modeling Memory, Maria Gabriela Navas Zuloaga

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Developmental Transitions In Amygdala Pkc Isoforms And Ampa Receptor Expression Associated With Threat Memory In Infant Rats, Maya Opendak, Roseanna M. Zanca, Eben Anane, Peter Serrano, Regina M. Sullivan

Publications and Research

Although infants learn and remember, they rapidly forget, a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia. While myriad mechanisms impact this rapid forgetting, the molecular events supporting memory maintenance have yet to be explored. To explore memory mechanisms across development, we used amygdala-dependent odor-shock conditioning and focused on mechanisms important in adult memory, the AMPA receptor subunits GluA1/2 and upstream protein kinases important for trafficking AMPAR, protein kinase M zeta (PKMζ) and iota/lambda (PKCι/λ). We use odor-shock conditioning in infant rats because it is late-developing (postnatal day, PN10) and can be modulated by corticosterone during a sensitive period in early life. Our …

Music & Neuroscience As A Digital Therapeutic For Walking, Brian Harris

Crossroads of Music and Technology

With the advancement of both neuroscience and clinical research demonstrating the ability of music to enhance functional outcomes, there is an ever-growing need to identify opportunities to deliver and solutions to facilitate these improved outcomes to patients. This need is amplified in the face of a growing and aging population that faces rising healthcare costs and a fractured healthcare delivery system. Digital therapeutics will play an important role in bringing these interventions to the people who need and deserve to have them.

Violence Exposure And Neural Systems Underlying Working Memory For Emotional Stimuli In Youth, Jessica L. Jenness, Maya L. Rosen, Kelly A. Sambrook, Meg J. Dennison, Hilary K. Lambert, Margaret A. Sheridan, Katie A. Mclaughlin

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Violence exposure during childhood is common and associated with poor cognitive and academic functioning. However, little is known about how violence exposure influences cognitive processes that might contribute to these disparities, such as working memory, or their neural underpinnings, particularly for cognitive processes that occur in emotionally salient contexts. We address this gap in a sample of 54 participants aged 8 to 19 years (50% female), half with exposure to interpersonal violence. Participants completed a delayed match to sample task for emotional faces while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Violence-exposed youth performed worse than controls on happy and neutral, …

Inclusion Of Females Does Not Increase Variability In Rodent Research Studies, Annaliese K. Beery

Psychology: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Achieving Cohesiveness In Healthcare With Music, Motion, Technology, And Accountability: Novel Approaches For Music Therapy In The Digital Health Era, Imen Maaroufi

Crossroads of Music and Technology

This paper addresses the importance of music in therapy and education, focusing on the population segments of children with special needs and Parkinson’s patients. It also highlights the importance of rhythm in motion with the absence of music. It also address ways to measure and compare methods, as well as their impact and how technology can help us with that.

Natural And Artificial Object Recognition: The Superiority Of Natural Shape Features, Lauren Pedersen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of 44 young adults (mean age = 21.7 years) to compare natural and artificial three-dimensional (3-D) objects using their senses of vision and touch. Previous research has indicated that the information content provided by a stimulus set can have a significant effect on a participant’s ability to perform cross-modal object recognition tasks. A primary goal of the present study was to understand what shape features are transferable between visual and haptic modalities. Participants haptically manipulated objects from one of two stimulus sets: bell peppers (Capsicum annuum) and sinusoidally-modulated spheres (SIMS). …

How Auditory And Visual Working Memory Tasks Affect Misophonic Response Levels, Erin Ansusinha, Melette Devore, Dr. Daniel Corts

Celebration of Learning

Misophonia is characterized by an extreme aversion towards auditory triggers, such as chewing, tapping, and other repetitive sounds, making ignoring or directing attention away from the sounds nearly impossible. It is not classified as a psychological disorder, but it is associated with significant, reflexive emotional disturbances. Studies have shown that the anterior insular cortex (AIC), an area involved in detecting irregularities or errors, functions differently in people with misophonia, which translates to difficulty in controlling emotional reactions. The present study examines how misophonic reactions might interact with cognition with particular attention to how cognitive demands may exacerbate the emotional response. …

New Functions For The Proprioceptive System In Skeletal Biology, Ronen Blecher, Lia Heinemann-Yerushalmi, Eran Assaraf, Nitzan Konstantin, Jens R. Chapman, Timothy C. Cope, Guy S. Bewick, Robert W. Banks, Elazar Zelzer

Neuroscience, Cell Biology & Physiology Faculty Publications

Muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs (GTOs) are two types of sensory receptors that respond to changes in length or tension of skeletal muscles. These mechanosensors have long been known to participate in both proprioception and stretch reflex. Here, we present recent findings implicating these organs in maintenance of spine alignment as well as in realignment of fractured bones. These discoveries have been made in several mouse lines lacking functional mechanosensors in part or completely. In both studies, the absence of functional spindles and GTOs produced a more severe phenotype than that of spindles alone. Interestingly, the spinal curve phenotype, …

Astrocyte Activation And The Calcineurin/Nfat Pathway In Cerebrovascular Disease, Susan D. Kraner, Christopher M. Norris

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Calcineurin (CN) is a Ca²⁺/calmodulin-dependent protein phosphatase with high abundance in nervous tissue. Though enriched in neurons, CN can become strongly induced in subsets of activated astrocytes under different pathological conditions where it interacts extensively with the nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFATs). Recent work has shown that regions of small vessel damage are associated with the upregulation of a proteolized, highly active form of CN in nearby astrocytes, suggesting a link between the CN/NFAT pathway and chronic cerebrovascular disease. In this Mini Review article, we discuss CN/NFAT signaling properties in the context of vascular disease and …

Enriched Physical Environment Attenuates Spatial And Social Memory Impairments Of Aged Socially Isolated Mice, Linmei Wang, Min Cao, Tinglin Pu, Huang Huang, Charles Marshall, Ming Xiao

Physical Therapy Faculty Publications

Background: Social isolation in the elderly is one of the principal health risks in an aging society. Physical environmental enrichment is shown to improve sensory, cognitive, and motor functions, but it is unknown whether environmental enrichment can protect against brain impairments caused by social isolation.

Methods: Eighteen-month-old mice were housed, either grouped or isolated, in a standard or enriched environment for 2 months, respectively. Behavioral tests were performed to evaluate cognitive functional and social interaction ability. Synaptic protein levels, myelination, neuroinflammation, brain derived neurotrophic factor, and NOD-like receptor protein 3 inflammasome signaling pathways were examined in the medial prefrontal cortex …

Does Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation To The Prefrontal Cortex Affect Social Behavior? A Meta-Analysis, Sarah Beth Bell, Nathan Dewall

Psychology Faculty Publications

This meta-analysis (k = 48, N = 2196) examined the effect of transcranial direct current brain stimulation (tDCS) applied to the prefrontal cortex on a variety of social behaviors, including aggression, overeating, impulsivity, bias, honesty, and risk-taking. tDCS showed an overall significant effect on reducing undesirable behaviors, with an average effect size of d = −0.20. tDCS was most effective at reducing risk-taking behavior, bias, and overeating. tDCS did not affect aggression, impulsivity, or dishonesty. We examined moderators such as brain region of interest, online vs offline stimulation, within- vs between-subjects designs, dose, and duration, but none showed significant …

Lipopolysaccharide‐Induced Inflammation Does Not Alter Muscle Spindle Afferent Mechanosensation Or Sensory Integration In The Spinal Cord Of Adult Mice, Dasha Zaytseva, Anusha Allawala, Joy Franco, Shea Putnam, Adam Abtahie, Nina Bubalo, Connor Criddle, Tuan Nguyen, Peter Nguyen, Shreejit Padmanabhan, Puneet Sanghera, Martina Bremer, Tzvia Abramson, Katherine A. Wilkinson

Faculty Publications, Biological Sciences

Inflammation is known to alter nervous system function, but its effect on muscle spindle afferent mechanosensation and sensory integration in the spinal cord has not been well studied. We tested the hypothesis that systemic inflammation induced by an intraperitoneal injection of the endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 7.5 × 105 endotoxin units/kg 18 h before experiment) would alter muscle spindle afferent mechanosensation and spinal cord excitability to Group Ia input in male and female adult C57Bl/6 mice. LPS injection caused a systemic immune response, evidenced by decreased white blood cell, monocyte, and lymphocyte concentrations in the blood, increased blood granulocyte concentration, and …

Role Of Dimensionality In Predicting The Spontaneous Behavior Of The Brain Using The Classical Ising Model And The Ising Model Implemented On A Structural Connectome, Pubuditha M. Abeyasinghe, Demetrius Ribeiro De Paula, Sina Khajehabdollahi, Sree Ram Valluri, Adrian M. Owen, Andrea Soddu

BrainsCAN Publications

© Pubuditha M. Abeyasinghe et al. 2018. There is accumulating evidence that spontaneous fluctuations of the brain are sustained by a structural architecture of axonal fiber bundles. Various models have been used to investigate this structure-function relationship. In this work, we implemented the Ising model using the number of fibers between each pair of brain regions as input. The output of the Ising model simulations on a structural connectome was then compared with empirical functional connectivity data. A simpler two-dimensional classical Ising model was used as the baseline model for comparison purpose. Thermodynamic properties, such as the magnetic susceptibility and …

Administration Of 5-Ht-1b Agonist Ameliorates Pseudodementia Induced By Depression In Rats, Asia Afzal, Saara Ahmad, Faiza Agha, Zehra Batool, Saiqa Tabassum, Laraib Liaquat, Sadia Sadir, Amber Nawaz, Saida Haider

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of memory impairment in general population. The serotonin hypothesis provides a target model for the treatment of depression and depression-associated memory loss. 5-HT-1B receptor is suggested as a potential candidate in the pathophysiology of depressive illness. Dysfunction of 5-HT-1B receptors has been observed previously in depressive patients. Zolmitriptan, 5-HT-1B agonist is clinically recommended for the treatment of migraine. However, in present study this drug was tested as a potential treatment for depression and associated memory loss by altering the serotonergic function at receptor level. Rats (n=24) were equally divided into unstressed and …

The Impact Of Perineuronal Net Digestion Using Chondroitinase Abc On The Intrinsic Physiology Of Cortical Neurons, Philip Chu, Reena Abraham, Kumarie Budhu, Usma Khan, Natalie De Marco Garcia, Joshua C. Brumberg

Publications and Research

Perineuronal nets (PNNs) are a form of aggregate Extracellular Matrix (ECM) in the brain. Recent evidence suggests that the postnatal deposition of PNNs may play an active role in regulating neuroplasticity and, potentially, neurological disorders. Observations of high levels of PNNs expression around somas, proximal dendrites, and axon initial segments of a subtype of neurons have also led to proposals that PNNs may modulate the intrinsic properties of the neurons they ensheathe. While high levels of PNNs are postnatally expressed throughout the neocortex, it is still unclear how they impact the neuronal physiology of the many classes and subtypes of …

The Fragmented Mind: Working Memory Cannot Implement Consciousness, Javier Gomez-Lavin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In both philosophy and the sciences of the mind there is a shared commitment to the idea that there is a center—the seat of consciousness, the source of deliberation and reflection, and the core of personal identity—in the mind. My dissertation challenges this deeply entrenched view. I review the empirical literature on working memory, psychology’s best candidate for the workspace of the mind, and argue that it is not a natural kind and cannot inform these central cognitive processes. This deflationary view directly imperils many naturalistic theories of consciousness that rely on working memory, which are reviewed in this project. …