Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Hdac6 Inhibition Reverses Long-Term Doxorubicin-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction By Restoring Microglia Homeostasis, Blake Mcalpin

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

One in 8 women in the US will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Currently, doxorubicin is one of the most effective chemotherapies for breast cancer. Unfortunately, up to 60% of survivors report long-term chemotherapy-induced cognitive dysfunction (CICD) characterized by deficits in working memory, processing speed, and executive functioning. Currently, no interventions for CICD have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. I show here that a 14-day treatment with a blood-brain barrier permeable histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) inhibitor successfully reverses long-term CICD following a therapeutic doxorubicin dosing schedule in female mice, as assessed by the puzzle box test …

Innate Lymphoid Cell Characterization And Ilc2s In Neuroinflammation In Aging And Sex Differences, Alexis Mobley, Alexis S. Mobley

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Aging affects immunologic responses by a global immune system suppression, including dysregulation of cytokine mediators, leading to increased inflammation throughout all systems, termed inflammaging. However, understanding healthy aging mechanisms can bypass this effect. Inflammaging also leads to poor outcomes during brain injury, making immune-targeting therapeutics tantamount to overall brain health and longevity. Moreover, sex affects disease etiology and severity through hormonal and chromosomal sex, as the X chromosome contains most immunology-based genes. Androgens have a generally suppressive effect on the immune system. Additionally, when immune responses are mounted, males are better at CD4+ T cell type (Th1) responses, while females …

Impact Of Brain State On Visual And Prefrontal Population Coding In Behaving Animals, Russell Milton

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Patterns of neural activity in the brain constantly shift between different processing states. Earlier studies have established that the ongoing, spontaneous activity has major repercussions regarding how the brain processes incoming sensory stimuli. However, the interaction between behavioral activity and brain states throughout the cortical hierarchy of primates has not been understood. In particular, technical considerations have greatly limited the range of physical activities in which primate neuronal activity can be recorded. We have implemented two separate strategies to overcome these limitations. First, we have advanced wireless electrophysiological methodologies that enable recording high-yield neuronal data from animals as they freely …

The Effect Of Cognitive Status And Residency On Oral Health In Patients With Dementia, Nicole Stephens

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Poor oral health is a predictor of cognitive decline in elderly populations and has been shown to precede dementia. As cognitive decline progresses, patients are likely to move from the community into nursing facilities. We hypothesize that severity of dementia and residency type will impact the oral health of patients with dementia. Fifty-two participants of two dementia levels were recruited from the UTHealth Neurocognitive Disorders Center and two Houston-area nursing homes. A standardized oral health assessment, plaque index, and oral bacteria analysis determined participants’ oral health status. Further, data was collected on participants’ medical history, oral hygiene habits, dietary habits, …

Early Detection Of Atypical Motor And Neurobehavior Of Infants At Risk Secondary To Opioid Exposure: A Prospective Study, Kara Boynewicz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prenatal opioid exposure has been studied in relation to infants' medical outcomes. However, large gaps exist in the literature supporting early identification of atypical neurobehavior and motor development of infants with prenatal opioid exposure. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether prenatal opioid exposure has a negative influence on a newborn infant’s neurobehavior and motor development to aid in the early identification of potential delays. Using a prospective quasi experimental design, infants motor development using the Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) and neurobehavior using the NICU Neonatal Network Scale (NNNS) was assessed on 58 infants in a …

The Effects Of Executive Function Between Anxiety And Math Achievement In Adolescents, Mckenzie Hall

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Anxiety in Children can develop into pervasive disorders in adulthood if not treated. Research shows dysfunctional Executive Function (EF) and anxiety are both shown to have a negative impact on math achievement in children and adolescents (Trezise & Reeve, 2018; Kalaycioglu, 2015; Owens, Stevenson, Hadwin & Norgate, 2012). Chung, Weyandt, and Swentosky (2014) found biological and neuropsychological support for EF as a unitary and multifaceted processor for regulating our emotional states as well as our daily procedures. Anderson’s (2002) model of Executive Control System (ECS) allows the factors of EF to be examined using a developmental approach towards EF processes. …

Prenatal Exposure To A Climate-Related Disaster Results In Changes Of The Placental Transcriptome And Infant Temperament, Jessica Buthmann, Dennis Huang, Patrizia Casaccia, Sarah O'Neill, Yoko Nomura

Advanced Science Research Center

Maternal stress during pregnancy exerts long-term effects on the mental well-being of the offspring. However, the long-term effect of prenatal exposure on the offspring’s mental status is only partially understood. The placenta plays a vital role in connecting the maternal side to the fetus, thereby serving as an important interface between maternal exposure and fetal development. Here, we profiled the placental transcriptome of women who were pregnant during a hurricane (Superstorm Sandy), which struck New York City in 2012. The offspring were followed longitudinally and their temperament was assessed during the first 6–12 months of age. The data identified a …

Use Of Intramodal Odor Cues In Shelter Recognition By An Amblypygid, Nathan Bostelman

Honors Projects

Amblypygids are nocturnal arthropods which live in cluttered habitats and possess the ability to navigate home after displacements of up to ten meters. Homing amblypygids rely on olfactory and tactile information gathered by their antenniform legs to navigate successfully. Given that odor signals encountered in nature are complex and dynamic, navigation via olfaction presents unique challenges related to signal uncertainty. To understand how amblypygids perceive perceive complex odors and what they learn from them, individuals of the subtropical amblypygid P. marginemaculatus were trained to associate a blend of two odors with a shelter and tested on three treatments: the reinforced …

The Relationship Between Circadian Rhythms And Neurodegenerative Disease, Christopher Simpson

Honors Projects

Neurodegenerative disease is a pervasive and insidious disease affecting a large proportion of the elderly population. Leading to the degeneration of neural tissue throughout the nervous system, it is a slow and progressive disorder. Because of its nature, it is possible that it has a connection to circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are the endogenous approximately 24-hour rhythms of the body commonly associated with the sleep-wake cycle, but they account for much more. This review aims to ascertain the relationship between the two by covering several facets of research pursued in the past five years. Beginning with establishing a basic understanding …

Alzheimer's Disease: A Comprehensive Review Including Personal Experience From Retirement Home Patients, Sydney Fox

Honors Theses

Alzheimer’s Disease is a neurodegenerative illness and disease, the most common type of dementia, and the sixth leading cause of death (Sá et al., 2012). The disease was discovered in 1906 and named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a psychiatrist and neuropathologist. Over time, a variety of hypotheses have developed regarding the cause behind this multifactorial disease, and these will be disclosed in a later section. Nonetheless, the disease was first observed in changes of the brain tissue of a woman who was said to have die from an unusual mental illness with many abnormal bumps. These bumps are now recognized …

Exercise In The Heat: Perceptual Measures In Hydrated And Dehydrated Conditions, John Kromer

Honors Scholar Theses

Introduction: Athletes, warfighters, and laborers are often exposed to extreme environmental conditions that can result in heat-related illnesses negatively impacting performance and productivity.

Purpose: To evaluate Total Mood Disturbance (TMD) from pre-trial to post-trial surrounding exercise in the heat. The secondary purpose was to compare post-trial measures between hydration status as well as environmental conditions.

Methods: Twenty-six male and female subjects performed four trials. Two trials were conducted in temperate conditions (24 ℃, 55% relative humidity) and two in extreme heat conditions (35 ℃, 55% relative humidity), in both hydrated and dehydrated conditions. The Profile of Moods States survey was …

Recognition Memory For Auditory And Visual Objects, Sharica Lee, Alexa Salomon, Kevin Mohawk, Laura Werner

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Visual object memory is superior to auditory object memory. Our past research showed that auditory memory was less sensitive to divide attention during study, which may be attributable to representational differences between auditory memory and visual memory.

In the present study, we attempted to equate auditory and visual memory representations in order to adequately investigate the impact of dividing attention on recognition memory.

Recognition memory is thought to rely on two distinct processes, recollection and familiarity. Recollection involves the retrieval of precise qualitative detail and is the most sensitive to dividing attention.

Infants' Intermodal Knowledge Of Gender Using Faces And Voices, Bijoux Cheun, Christina Saliba, Alexis Rice, Marian Espina

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Infants begin to use intermodal knowledge to match male and female faces to the corresponding voice, in their first year of life.

Infants have more experience with female faces which should lead to greater intermodal knowledge of female faces.

Previous studies have found inconsistent results. This could be due to the type of stimuli used.

This study uses several pairs of static and dynamic faces to investigate how methodological differences may impact infants' performance.

Forgetting In Item Recognition And Pattern Separation, Mateo Marquez, Rhiannon Soriano Smith

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Forgetting is commonly defined as the inability to access information that was once successfully encoded and could be retrieved with a cue, but now leads to memory failure (Frankland et al. 2013).

Memory representations based in the hippocampus engage in pattern separation and are more prone to decay than interference (Sadeh & Pertrzov, 2020).

Extra-hippocampal representations are more prone to interference than decay (Hardt et al. 2013).

Pattern Separation refers to keeping memory representations distinct from one another.

Is there more decay in pattern separation and more interference in item recognition?

The Influence Of Unitization On Recognition Memory, Ting Tong, Amaya D. Bolling-Mcdevitt Hernandez, Audrey Kirsch, Alanna N. Osmanski

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Previous research on recognition memory assumes that associative recognition relies on recollection, whereas item recognition relies on a combination of recollection and familiarity. Unitization refers to the encoding strategy where two separate items are perceived as a single coherent entity or object. Research has demonstrated that unitization can facilitate familiarity-based recognition by generating representations of the stimulus and integrating it into a unified whole. To investigate this issue, we examined the effect of unitization on memory for word-pairs through two types of tests:

Associative Recognition: judge whether word pairs occurred together

Item Recognition: judge whether single words are old or …

Peripheral Blood Cell Counts As Potential Biomarkers For Alzheimer's Disease: A Look At Polygenetic Risk Scores, Melika Cummings, Yimei Lu, Joan Manuel Cue, Neel Patel, Jenifer Do

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Blood-based biomarkers for neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been extensively researched. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurological illness whose progression has been ascribed to gene expression. However, the pathophysiology of these disorders and its relationship to other abnormalities remain unknown. AD has been connected to PBCs, which include erythrocytes, platelets, and leukocytes and have a complicated interaction with the brain system. The pathogenesis of PBCs has been related to a negative influence on established neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's. Candidate gene association studies have become more common as progress in mapping the human genome has increased …

Classical Conditioning Of Cognitive States, Arthur Burns

Neuroscience Honors Papers

Classical conditioning has been a fundamental concept and practice throughout the history of psychology. While classical conditioning traditionally seeks to elicit target behaviors in correlation to specific stimuli, we sought to do the same with cognitive states in place of behaviors. Specifically, we wanted to determine the effectiveness of conditioning states of cognitive arousal in human participants in conjunction with cues presented in a designed learning task. We designed a cognitive task specifically for this research, referred to as “the Tone Pitching Task”, which utilized a combination of working memory and mental processing in order to elicit cognitive arousal and …

The Various Nervous System Drugs Commonly Used For Treatment And The Disparities In Availability Of These Drugs In Minority Groups, Iman Haurami

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

The nervous system is a complex network in our body that is responsible for actions, reflexes, and even sensations. With the brain being part of the CNS, many common nervous system disorders are due to a defect in the central nervous system and the functions of this organ. These disorders include mental health problems, degenerative diseases, seizures, infections, and other possible genetic diseases. Many of these diseases are common in society and constantly researched. Even though these diseases are common, treatment accessibility and effects on people of minority groups are overlooked compared to the focus on majority groups. For drug …

A Psychopharmacology Review Of Brexpiprazole, Nicole A. Marion

Conspectus Borealis

Brexpiprazole is an antipsychotic drug often used to help treat schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. This review paper breaks down the drugs history including what it is used for, how it is used, and how it was developed. Pharmacokinetics including administration routes, steady states, and metabolism. This review also describes pharmacodynamics, focusing on drug affinity. It will also discuss pharmacological effects pulling evidence from clinical trials. Last this review will describe the toxicology and safety of brexpiprazole.

Differential Associations Of Conduct Disorder, Callous‑Unemotional Traits And Irritability With Outcome Expectations And Values Regarding The Consequences Of Aggression, J. Elowsky, S. Bajaj, J. Bashford‑Largo, R. Zhang, A. Mathur, A. Schwartz, M. Dobbertin, K. S. Blair, E. Leibenluft, D. Pardini, R. J.R. Blair

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty Publications

Background: Previous work has examined the association of aggression levels and callous-unemotional traits with outcome expectations and values regarding the consequences of aggression. Less work has examined the outcome expectations and values regarding the consequences of aggression of adolescents with Conduct Disorder (CD). Also, no studies have examined links between irritability (a second socio-affective trait associated with CD) and these social cognitive processes despite the core function of anger in retaliatory aggression and establishing dominance.

Method: The current study, investigating these issues, involved 193 adolescents (typically developing [TD; N = 106], 87 cases with CD [N = 87]). Participants completed …

Exploring The Relationship Between Bipolar Disorder, Alcohol Use, And Obsessive Compulsive Disorder In The Hca Animal Model, Erick Alvarado, Ayanna Bailey, Sabrina Blank, Lindsey Boltz, Corine Lafrenier, Molly Poel

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

An estimated 4.4% of U.S. adults experience bipolar disorder at some point during their lifetime. While the prevalence of bipolar disorder is similar among males and females, it is becoming increasingly obvious that symptoms and comorbidities of the disorder can vary widely between men and women. Recent research has shown that men diagnosed with bipolar disorder are more likely to exhibit alcohol use disorders and obsessive compulsive behaviors while women have a higher incidence of panic disorder comorbidity. In order to develop effective treatment for the disorder, it is important to use an animal model that reflects these sex-dependent differences. …

Early Prenatal Exposure To Homocysteic Acid Leads To Alterations In Behavior And Gene Expression That Are Consistent With Bipolar Disorder, Kelly Bosis, Gabriella Taylor, Anna Lunderberg, Stephanie Simko

21st Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2022)

We have previously demonstrated that early post-natal exposure of rat pups to the NMDA receptor agonist, homocysteic acid (HCA) from P3-P21 leads to the development of mixed manic/depressive behaviors following puberty. The manic behaviors are effectively reversed by lithium treatment, and the depressive behaviors are reversed by acute ketamine treatment. Thus, HCA appears to induce a bipolar-like phenotype in rats. The goal of this study was to determine whether HCA exposure also induces gene expression changes that are consistent with a bipolar phenotype. Microarray analyses were performed on tissue obtained from the prefrontal cortices of saline- and HCA-treated rats at …

Coming Face-To-Face With The Influence Of Priming And Attentional Bias On Perception Of Emotional Faces, Alyssa Stephens, Carole Scherling Phd

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Unconscious emotional facial priming may affect subsequent actions, thoughts, and feelings in individuals (LeMoult et al., 2012). Previous work has shown that positive and negative emotional priming leads to subsequent judgments of neutral faces as positive and negative, respectively (Fazio et al., 1986). Further, emotional engagement levels of approach (ex. happiness, anger) and withdrawal (ex: sadness) elicit different affective responses (Lang, 1977). The current study subliminally primed participants with a 3x4 image matrix, either presenting 12 positive approach (happy), negative approach (angry), or negative withdrawal (sad) faces for 200 ms. Each matrix was followed by a single neutral face image …

The Effects Of Paclitaxel On Cellular Migration And The Cytoskeleton, Ashley Salguero-Gonzalez

Thinking Matters Symposium

In a clinical setting, some patients are exposed to an anti-cancer chemotherapy agent, paclitaxel. Cancerous cells undergo rapid, continuous cell division without control. Chemotherapy treatments try to slow and stop the uncontrollable cell division cycles and eliminate cancerous cells in the process. Paclitaxel serves as a treatment for some types of cancers, including lung, melanoma, bladder, and esophageal. Because it targets the cytoskeleton, paclitaxel can also influence cell migration. This project utilizes a cellular migration assay and an immunohistochemistry assay to analyze the effects of paclitaxel on the movement of cells and on the cytoskeleton of neuroglia rat cells with …

Effects Of Acute Exercise Intensity On Memory: Considerations Of Timing And Aerobic Endurance, William Meyers, Caroline Loeb, Mary Collins West, Bailey Bass

Honors Theses

The primary objective of this study was to find the optimal acute exercise intensity and post-exercise recovery time to enhance memory retention. A secondary objective of study was to evaluate the influence of aerobic endurance on memory and whether endurance capacity interacts with exercise intensity and post-exercise recovery period to influence memory performance. Participants were 54 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Mississippi, with an age range of 18-23 years. Participants completed 13 visits in total. The first visit evaluated their aerobic endurance, with the remaining 12 visits including a 3 (Intensity: Control, Moderate, Vigorous) by 4 (Post-Exercise …

Neural Substrates Of Homing Pigeon Spatial Navigation: Results From Electrophysiology Studies, Gerald E. Hough

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

Over many centuries, the homing pigeon has been selectively bred for returning home from a distant location. As a result of this strong selective pressure, homing pigeons have developed an excellent spatial navigation system. This system passes through the hippocampal formation (HF), which shares many striking similarities to the mammalian hippocampus; there are a host of shared neuropeptides, interconnections, and its role in the storage and manipulation of spatial maps. There are some notable differences as well: there are unique connectivity patterns and spatial encoding strategies. This review summarizes the comparisons between the avian and mammalian hippocampal systems, and the …

Sex Differences In The Fecal Microbiome And Hippocampal Glial Morphology Following Diet And Antibiotic Treatment, Anju Saxena, Roberta R M Moran, Meghan R. Bullard, Emma O. Bondy, Matthew Foster Smith, Lainie Morris, Nicaella Fogle, Jagroop Singh, Brendan Jarvis, Tammy Ray, Juhi Saxena, Linnea Ruth Freeman

Open Access Fund Publications

Rising obesity rates have become a major public health concern within the United States. Understanding the systemic and neural effects of obesity is crucial in designing preventive and therapeutic measures. In previous studies, administration of a high fat diet has induced significant weight gain for mouse models of obesity. Interestingly, sex differences in high-fat diet-induced weight gain have been observed, with female mice gaining significantly less weight compared to male mice on the same high-fat diet. It has also been observed that consumption of a high-fat diet can increase neurogliosis, but the mechanism by which this occurs is still not …

Investigating The Role Of The Basolateral Amygdala Plays In The Incubation Of Cue-Induced Cocaine Seeking Behavior, Claire Marie Corbett

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Cocaine use disorder is a chronic, relapsing brain disease. Sex and ovarian hormones are known to influence cocaine addiction liability and relapse vulnerability. However, little is known regarding the cellular and synaptic mechanisms contributing to sex differences in relapse vulnerability, including how these measures are influenced by hormonal fluctuations. To investigate sex differences in relapse vulnerability we use a rodent model of cocaine craving and relapse called the incubation model in which cue-induced seeking progressively increases or “incubates” during the first month of withdrawal from extended-access cocaine self-administration. Using this model, we have recently shown that females in the estrus …

Notch3 Expression In Zebrafish With Inherited Degeneration Vs. Inflicted Damage, Meghan Graeca

Celebration of Scholarship 2022

While mammals possess a limited capacity for retinal regeneration, teleosts such as Danio rerio (zebrafish) can recover from retinal injury or cell death through stimulation of glia to induce reprogramming into neural stem-like cells.

1 In zebrafish, retinal Müller glia engage in regeneration in response to an injury-derived signal. It was previously shown2,3 that the regenerative response to retinal damage in zebrafish is regulated by the Notch signaling pathway. Persistent Notch signaling causes Müller glia to remain in a quiescent state in the undamaged retina, and Notch signaling repression causes Müller glia to reenter the cell cycle3 , reprogramming them …

Low-Intensity Blast Induces Acute Glutamatergic Hyperexcitability In Mouse Hippocampus Leading To Long-Term Learning Deficits And Altered Expression Of Proteins Involved In Synaptic Plasticity And Serine Protease Inhibitors, Shanyan Chen, Heather R. Siedhoff, Hua Zhang, Pei Liu, Ashley Balderrama, Runting Li, Catherine E. Johnson, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Neurocognitive consequences of blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) pose significant concerns for military service members and veterans with the majority of "invisible injury." However, the underlying mechanism of such mild bTBI by low-intensity blast (LIB) exposure for long-term cognitive and mental deficits remains elusive. Our previous studies have shown that mice exposed to LIB result in nanoscale ultrastructural abnormalities in the absence of gross or apparent cellular damage in the brain. Here we tested the hypothesis that glutamatergic hyperexcitability may contribute to long-term learning deficits. Using brain slice electrophysiological recordings, we found an increase in averaged frequencies with a burst …