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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Stress-Dependent Regulation Of A Major Node Of The Insulin-Like Peptide Network That Modulates Survival, Rashmi Chandra Jan 2019

Stress-Dependent Regulation Of A Major Node Of The Insulin-Like Peptide Network That Modulates Survival, Rashmi Chandra

Wayne State University Dissertations

Chronic stress disrupts insulin signaling, predisposing human populations to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, and other metabolic and neurological disorders, including post-traumatic disorders (PTSD). Thus, efficient recovery from stress optimizes survival. However, stress recovery in humans is difficult to study, but is much easier to dissect in model organisms. The worm genetic model Caenorhabditis elegans can switch between stressed and non-stressed states, and this switch is largely regulated by insulin signaling. Previously, the Alcedo lab proposed that insulin-like peptides (ILPs), which exist as multiple members of a protein family in both C. elegans and humans, implements a combinatorial coding strategy …


Characterizing The Development Of Episodic Memory And Assessing The Reliability Of Fmri Measures, Lingfei Tang Jan 2019

Characterizing The Development Of Episodic Memory And Assessing The Reliability Of Fmri Measures, Lingfei Tang

Wayne State University Dissertations

The ability to remember past events is critical for everyday life and showed robust improvement over development from childhood to adulthood. With advances in noninvasive neuroimaging methods such as functional MRI in recent years, research efforts have been focused on identifying neural correlates underpinning developmental gains in memory performance. In my dissertation work, using a widely-validated subsequent memory paradigm, I aim to characterize functional MRI correlates of memory development. Specifically, I focused my investigation on identifying age differences in the functional patterns of two brain regions critical for memory, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Focusing on the prefrontal cortex …


Development Of More Light Sensitive And Red-Shifted Channelrhodopsin Variants For Optogenetic Vision Restoration, Tushar Harishkumar Ganjawala Jan 2019

Development Of More Light Sensitive And Red-Shifted Channelrhodopsin Variants For Optogenetic Vision Restoration, Tushar Harishkumar Ganjawala

Wayne State University Dissertations

Discovery of channelrhodopsin (ChR), a light sensitive protein from green algae, has revolutionized the field of neuroscience research by empowering scientist to control neuron through the light, the technology popularly known as optogenetics. The ChR based optogenetics is one of the promising approaches for treating blindness caused by photoreceptor degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Fundamentally, the approach is about imparting light sensitivity to surviving inner retinal cells by ectopic expression of genetically encoded light sensitive proteins, such as ChR2. Although the concept of optogenetic approach has been proved by using ChR2, a major …