Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Congenital Anomaly Epidemiological Correlates Of Δ8thc Across Usa 2003–16: Panel Regression And Causal Inferential Study, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Kenneth Hulse

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Δ8-Tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ8THC) is marketed in many US states as ‘legal weed’. Concerns exist relating to class-wide genotoxic cannabinoid effects. We conducted an epidemiological investigation of Δ8THC-related genotoxicity expressed as 57 congenital anomaly (CA) rates (CARs) in the USA. CARs were taken from the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia. Drug exposure data were taken from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, with a response rate of 74.1%. Ethnicity and income data were taken from the US Census Bureau. National cannabinoid exposure was taken from Drug Enforcement Agency publications and multiplied by state cannabis use data to derive state-based …

Christianity And Fear: The Neuropsychological Processes Involved In The Relationship Between Fear And Religion, Courtney Welch-Horstman

Obsculta

Religion frames the lives and minds of individuals who practice the Christian faith. Regarding the mind, this statement can be understood both figuratively and literally. The thought processes of human beings who claim to believe in God are strongly influenced by their perspective of Deity and what they think God's primary characteristic is. While some view God as loving, others view God as mainly angry and punishing. The way this question is answered by an individual reveals much about his or her neurocircuitry and which brain structures are most active and developed. These circuits and structures then impact the behaviors …

Medical Schools Ignore The Nature Of Consciousness At Great Cost, Anoop Kumar

Journal of Wellness

The essential question of the relationship between consciousness and matter is ignored in medical school curricula, leading to a machine-like view of the human being that contributes to physician burnout and intellectual dissatisfaction. The evidence suggesting that the brain may not be the seat of consciousness is generally ignored to preserve the worldview of the primacy of matter. By investigating new frameworks detailing the nature of consciousness at different levels of hierarchy, we can bring intellectual rigor to a once opaque subject that supports a fundamental reality about our experience: We are human beings, not only human bodies.

Understanding The Traumatized Brain, Sam Marion, Elizabeth Marston

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

Students who have experienced trauma are often in need of behavioral intervention due to challenging behaviors and reactivity. Understanding the body’s threat response system gives insight into these behaviors and allows for empathy within the interventions. This presentation will outline basic neuroscience theories, propose interventions focused on self-regulation, and demonstrate how adding basic elements to existing interventions can increase efficacy.

Mental Health & Drugs; A Map Of The Mind, Wylie Jones Jordan

Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences

The practice of physical medicine underwent a sea change at the turn of the 20th century, but the management of mental disorders stayed much the same as it had been since Rome. New names have been coined for disorders, and synthetic drugs are advertised as a solution to every problem, but the causes are still largely unknown and, although spontaneous remission can occur, there are no cures. This review of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment from Rome to the 21st century offers a rationale to support the classic (and still current) classification of disorders. It offers a method of distinguishing the …

Genome-Wide Dna Methylation Meta-Analysis In The Brains Of Suicide Completers, Stefania Policicchio, Sam Washer, Joana Viana, Artemis Iatrou, Joe Burrage, Eilis Hannon, Gustavo Tureki, Zachary Kaminsky, Jonathan Mill, Emma L. Dempster, Therese Murphy

Articles

Suicide is the second leading cause of death globally among young people representing a significant global health burden. Although the molecular correlates of suicide remains poorly understood, it has been hypothesised that epigenomic processes may play a role. The objective of this study was to identify suicide-associated DNA methylation changes in the human brain by utilising previously published and unpublished methylomic datasets. We analysed prefrontal cortex (PFC, n = 211) and cerebellum (CER, n = 114) DNA methylation profiles from suicide completers and non-psychiatric, sudden-death controls, meta-analysing data from independent cohorts for each brain region separately. We report evidence for …

Memantine: Can It Be Used To Treat Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder?, Austin Brown, Katherine Liu, Pul Lee, Rachel Muhlenkamp, Manoranjan D'Souza

Pharmacy and Wellness Review

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairment in social, behavior and communicative skills. The current therapy for ASD only targets the associated symptoms such as aggression, self-harming acts or temper tantrums but not the core symptoms of social dysfunction. The pathology of ASD is not fully understood. Interestingly, imaging studies in ASD patients have reported abnormal high levels of glutamate in certain brain regions that play an important role in social interaction and communication. Thus, it has been hypothesized that medications attenuating glutamate transmission may be used as treatment for some of the core symptoms of …

Distinct Patterns Of Default Mode And Executive Control Network Circuitry Contribute To Present And Future Executive Function In Older Adults, Christopher A. Brown, Frederick A. Schmitt, Charles D. Smith, Brian T. Gold

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

Executive function (EF) performance in older adults has been linked with functional and structural profiles within the executive control network (ECN) and default mode network (DMN), white matter hyperintensities (WMH) burden and levels of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. Here, we simultaneously explored the unique contributions of these factors to baseline and longitudinal EF performance in older adults. Thirty-two cognitively normal (CN) older adults underwent neuropsychological testing at baseline and annually for three years. Neuroimaging and AD pathology measures were collected at baseline. Separate linear regression models were used to determine which of these variables predicted composite EF scores at baseline …

Measuring Neural Time Series Data In A Sensory Deprivation Tank, Jackson Gregory, Tian Lan, Uri Maoz, Amir Raz

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

We are interested in studying the neurological and physiological effects of the float pod, also known as REST therapy, or sensory deprivation tank. Float pods rely on the concept of depriving most senses (from sound and light to temperature and proprioception) in a pool filled with buoyant salt water at body temperature. While float pods are most commonly used in spa environments, we intend to look at the potential benefits of floating under the empirical lens. In this study, we aim to measure neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG). We intend to look at the different levels of relaxation and the …

Rationale And Methods For A Multicenter Clinical Trial Assessing Exercise And Intensive Vascular Risk Reduction In Preventing Dementia (Rrad Study), Amanda N. Szabo-Reed, Eric Vidoni, Ellen F. Binder, Jeffrey Burns, C. Munro Cullum, William P. Gahan, Aditi Gupta, Linda S. Hynan, Diana R. Kerwin, Heidi Rossetti, Ann M. Stowe, Wanpen Vongpatanasin, David C. Zhu, Rong Zhang, Jeffrey N. Keller

Neurology Faculty Publications

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is an age-related disease with modifiable risk factors such as hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, obesity, and physical inactivity influencing the onset and progression. There is however, no direct evidence that reducing these risk factors prevents or slows AD. The Risk Reduction for Alzheimer's Disease (rrAD) trial is designed to study the independent and combined effects of intensive pharmacological control of blood pressure and cholesterol and exercise training on neurocognitive function. Six hundred and forty cognitively normal older adults age 60 to 85 years with hypertension and increased risk for dementia will be enrolled. Participants are randomized into one of …

Low Arousal Positive Emotional Stimuli Attenuate Aberrant Working Memory Processing In Persons With Mild Cognitive Impairment, Lucas S. Broster, Shonna L. Jenkins, Sarah D. Holmes, Gregory A. Jicha, Yang Jiang

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

Emotional enhancement effects on memory have been reported to mitigate the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, relative to their manifestation in persons without pathologic aging, these effects may be reduced in magnitude or even deleterious, especially in tasks that more closely model ecologic memory performance. Based upon a synthesis of such reports, we hypothesized that in persons with AD low arousal positive stimuli would evoke relatively intact emotional enhancement effects, but that high arousal negative stimuli would evoke disordered emotional enhancement effects. To assess this, participants with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) presumed to be due to AD …

Psycho-Physiologic Emergentism; Four Minds In A Body, David L. Rowland, Ion G. Motofei

Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences

The mind-body problem represents one of the most debated topics in the neurosciences. From a psychological standpoint, abstract/non-material data are an intrinsic part of the mind, intervening to a large extent in reasoning and decision making processes. Imaging studies also show a strong correlation between higher cognitive functions (such as working memory) and specific cerebral brain regions (a fronto-parietal network of interacting left and right brain areas). In contrast, the physical/material brain would be unable to interact with abstract-immaterial data, such that the psychological processing of abstract data (processes such as thinking, reasoning, and judgment) is attributed to the mind, …

Impulsive Personality Dimensions Are Associated With Altered Behavioral Performance And Neural Responses In The Monetary Incentive Delay Task, Ruolei Gu, Yang Jiang, Seth Kiser, Chelsea L. Black, Lucas S. Broster, Yue-Jia Luo, Thomas H. Kelly

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

Individual differences in dimensions of impulsivity personality including disinhibition and sensation seeking modulate approach responses to reinforcing stimuli, such as drugs and money. The current study examined the effects of monetary incentive on both behavioral performance and electrophysiological activity among individuals varying in disinhibition and sensation seeking. The monetary incentive delay (MID) task was completed under electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. Behavioral data showed that higher disinhibition and sensation-seeking were associated with lower performance accuracy. Event-related potential (ERP) data showed that high reinforcement cues elicited a larger late positive component (LPC) than other conditions among high disinhibition participants, indicating its strong emotional …

Sex Differences In The Drinking Response To Angiotensin Ii (Angii): Effect Of Body Weight, Jessica Santollo, Ann-Marie Torregrossa, Derek Daniels

Biology Faculty Publications

Sex differences in fluid intake stimulated by angiotensin II (AngII) have been reported, but the direction of the differences is inconsistent. To resolve these discrepancies, we measured water intake by male and female rats given AngII. Males drank more than females, but when intake was normalized to body weight, the sex difference was reversed. Weight-matched males and females, however, had no difference in intake. Using a linear mixed model analysis, we found that intake was influenced by weight, sex, and AngII dose. We used linear regression to disentangle these effects further. Comparison of regression coefficients revealed sex and weight differences …

Risk Of Incident Clinical Diagnosis Of Alzheimer's Disease-Type Dementia Attributable To Pathology-Confirmed Vascular Disease, Hiroko H. Dodge, Jian Zhu, Randy Woltjer, Peter T. Nelson, David A. Bennett, Nigel J. Cairns, David W. Fardo, Jeffrey A. Kaye, Deniz-Erten Lyons, Nora Mattek, Julie A. Schneider, Lisa C. Silbert, Chengjie Xiong, Lei Yu, Frederick A. Schmitt, Richard J. Kryscio, Erin L. Abner, Smart Data Consortium

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION: The presence of cerebrovascular pathology may increase the risk of clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

METHODS: We examined excess risk of incident clinical diagnosis of AD (probable and possible AD) posed by the presence of lacunes and large infarcts beyond AD pathology using data from the Statistical Modeling of Aging and Risk of Transition study, a consortium of longitudinal cohort studies with more than 2000 autopsies. We created six mutually exclusive pathology patterns combining three levels of AD pathology (low, moderate, or high AD pathology) and two levels of vascular pathology (without lacunes and large infarcts or with …

Measuring Brain Serine With Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy At 3.0 Tesla, Homa Javadzadeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) non-invasively measures regional human brain chemistry in vivo, providing concentration estimates for several metabolites in a pre-selected region of interest. MRS has been applied to investigations of disease-related metabolic and neurochemical alterations in schizophrenia since the early 90’s.

The objective of this research is to implement a metabolite-selective MRS method to quantify endogenous concentrations of human brain serine. Serine is a naturally-occurring amino acid and an important co-modulator of the N-Methyl D-aspartic Acid (NMDA) glutamate receptor. Glutamate abnormalities have been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, especially its so-called negative and cognitive symptoms, which can …

An Examination Into The Relationship Between Iron Deficiency And Postpartum Depression, Sara A. Burroughs

Senior Honors Theses

Postpartum depression is recognized as the most common complication of childbearing; however, its etiology remains fairly undetermined. Many different influences have been hypothesized as to what may cause postpartum depression, including changes in levels of various hormones (such as estrogen and progesterone), a decrease in serotonin, low levels of vitamin D, social factors, and iron deficiency. The lack of strong evidence for one specific cause makes it fairly clear that there are many factors that play a role in the development of postpartum depression. Iron deficiency is one issue that is thought to contribute to the development of postpartum depression …

Ambivalence: Prerequisite For Success In Motivational Interviewing With Adolescents?, Sarah W. Feldstein Ewing, Timothy R. Apodaca, Jacques Gaume

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The exploration and resolution of ambivalence play an essential role in motivational interviewing (MI) theory. However, most adolescent MI studies have not examined ambivalence as a contributor to behaviour change. This paper reviewed research findings on the role of ambivalence in the adolescent change process.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We undertook a narrative review of the published empirical and theoretical literature on ambivalence and mechanisms of change in MI for adolescents and found that current MI evaluations appear not to have access to reliable and valid measures of ambivalence in adolescence or neuroimaging methods to evaluate the mechanisms …

Consciousness: Where We Are At, Imants Barušs

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

It is useful every couple of years to take a bird’s eye view of consciousness studies and reflect on what we see. When I look, I still see two streams, one of which is the social and political framework for the study of consciousness, and the other of which is the substance of what we know about consciousness. The former is still largely defined by the extent to which the scientific study of consciousness has been freed from a materialist agenda. The latter includes recent research into the clarity of cognitive functioning in the absence of sufficient neurological support for …

Premises Of A Natural Science Of Consciousness, Ervin Laszlo

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

According to the mainstream of modern science, there cannot be a natural science of consciousness because consciousness does not actually exist in nature. It is a product or by-product of the workings of the brain. There is a natural science of brain and the nervous system, for these are bona fide elements of the world, but there cannot be a natural science of a phenomenon of which the very existence is in question. In the prevalent view con2sciousness is something that happens when neurons fire in the brain. This is said to be confirmed by experience. There is no consciousness …

Reembodying, Human Consciousness In The Earth, John Briggs

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

For the last 20,000 years or so the dominant mode of human consciousness has been one that divides reality into subjects and objects, and focuses on human desires and needs. This anthropocentric mode of consciousness has invented religions, built civilizations, amassed knowledge, and developed technology and science. It has also disembodied us from the Earth and led to the Anthropocene Era. Still with us is another mode of human consciousness that arguably once existed in a balance with the anthropocentric mode during our long hunter-gatherer, Paleolithic sojourn. This holistic, integrative mode of consciousness experiences the Earth as a mother, and …

Brain Maturation, Poverty And Social Exclusion: Shifting Paradigms Of Psychopathology, Amresh Srivastava

Psychiatry Presentations

Abstract for lecture

Poverty is a major risk factor for mental disorders. Neuroimaging studies show path are breaking findings to explain why ppeople living in poverty suffer from improper development and maturation of brain due to neuronal loss. It sets in much before the child is born and leads to increased vulnerability for mental disorders.

Recent findings show that changes in brain structure and function due to lack of brain maturation is directly related to poverty. A number of these changes are end result of neuronal survival in the most fundamental neuronal matrix. These findings along with other biological correlates …

Differential Microglial Activation Following Immune Challenge In Peripubertal And Adult Outbred Mice, David J. Placzek

Masters Theses

Pubertal development is a time of growth and development in the brain, leading to high sensitivity during this period. Past research in our lab has shown that shipping female inbred and outbred mice during pubertal development alters their sensitivity to steroid hormones in adulthood, thus affecting sexual receptivity, cognition, depression-like behavior, and anxiety-like behavior. Here, we test the hypothesis that mice treated with lipopolysaccharide during pubertal development would have more active microglia, the brain's immune cells, after injection than mice treated with lipopolysaccharide in adulthood. No significant interactions were observed between treatment and age between any brain area measured, suggesting …

Exposure To Kynurenic Acid During Adolescence Increases Sign-Tracking And Impairs Long-Term Potentiation In Adulthood, Nicole E. Deangeli, Travis P. Todd, Stephen E. Chang, Hermes H. Yeh, Pamela W. Yeh, David J. Bucci

Dartmouth Scholarship

Changes in brain reward systems are thought to contribute significantly to the cognitive and behavioral impairments of schizophrenia, as well as the propensity to develop co-occurring substance abuse disorders. Presently, there are few treatments for persons with a dual diagnosis and little is known about the neural substrates that underlie co-occurring schizophrenia and substance abuse. One goal of the present study was to determine if a change in the concentration of kynurenic acid (KYNA), a tryptophan metabolite that is increased in the brains of people with schizophrenia, affects reward-related behavior. KYNA is an endogenous antagonist of NMDA glutamate receptors and …

Neuroimaging And Neuromodulation Approaches To Study Eating Behavior And Prevent And Treat Eating Disorders And Obesity, D. Val-Laillet, E. Aarts, B. Weber, M. Ferrari, V. Quaresima, L. E. Stoeckel, M. Alonso-Alonso, M. Audette, C. H. Malbert, E. Stice

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Functional, molecular and genetic neuroimaging has highlighted the existence of brain anomalies and neural vulnerability factors related to obesity and eating disorders such as binge eating or anorexia nervosa. In particular, decreased basal metabolism in the prefrontal cortex and striatum as well as dopaminergic alterations have been described in obese subjects, in parallel with increased activation of reward brain areas in response to palatable food cues. Elevated reward region responsivity may trigger food craving and predict future weight gain. This opens the way to prevention studies using functional and molecular neuroimaging to perform early diagnostics and to phenotype subjects at …

Pd_Ngsatlas: A Reference Database Combining Next-Generation Sequencing Epigenomic And Transcriptomic Data For Psychiatric Disorders, Zheng Zhao, Yongsheng Li, Hong Chen, Jianping Lu, Peter M. Thompson, Juan Cheng, Zishan Wang, Juan Xu, Chun Xu, Xia Li

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BP) are projected to lead the global disease burden within the next decade. Several lines of evidence suggest that epigenetic- or genetic-mediated dysfunction is frequently present in these disorders. To date, the inheritance patterns have been complicated by the problem of integrating epigenomic and transcriptomic factors that have yet to be elucidated. Therefore, there is a need to build a comprehensive database for storing epigenomic and transcriptomic data relating to psychiatric disorders.

Description: We have developed the PD_NGSAtlas, which focuses on the efficient storage of epigenomic and transcriptomic data based …

Asperger Syndrome And Blogging; Theory Of Mind And The Extreme Male Brain Theory In Self-Identified Women With Asperger Syndrome, Vanesa Morgan

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Brain, Mind And Behaviour - Emerging Biological Connections, Amresh Srivastava

Amresh Srivastava

No abstract provided.

Gonadal Steroids Differentially Modulate Neurotoxicity Of Hiv And Cocaine: Testosterone And Ici 182,780 Sensitive Mechanism, Sherie L. Kendall, Caroline F. Anderson, Avindra Nath, Jadwiga Turchan-Cholewo, Cantey L. Land, Charles F. Mactutus, Rosemarie M. Booze

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: HIV Associated Dementia (HAD) is a common complication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection that erodes the quality of life for patients and burdens health care providers. Intravenous drug use is a major route of HIV transmission, and drug use is associated with increased HAD. Specific proteins released as a consequence of HIV infection (e.g., gp120, the HIV envelope protein and Tat, the nuclear transactivating protein) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of HAD. In primary cultures of human fetal brain tissue, subtoxic doses of gp120 and Tat are capable of interacting with a physiologically relevant dose of cocaine, …