Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Effect Of Gaba A Antagonism On Locomotor Activity And Dopamine Release In The Mouse Caudate Putamen Following Acute Toluene Inhalation: An In-Vivo Microdialysis Study, Sean Callan

Wayne State University Theses

Toluene is ubiquitous solvent commonly inhaled recreationally. Despite its frequency of misuse, there is little understanding of how toluene acts within the brain. To examine this, this master's thesis examined the impact of acutely inhaled toluene on dopamine (DA) release in the mouse CPu in vivo using microdialysis techniques. Toluene inhalation produced dose-dependent increases in DA levels as well as changes in locomotor activity. These effects were potentiated by pre-treatment with the GABAA antagonist bicuculline via reverse microdialysis delivery. These results suggest that the DA dynamics of toluene abuse are related to toluene's previously explored effects on the GABA system. …

Empathy As A Moderator Of Adolescent Bullying Behavior And Moral Disengagement After Controlling For Social Desirability, Amy Zelidman

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the moderating influence empathy has on the associations between adolescent bullying behavior and moral disengagement after controlling for social desirability (e.g., response bias). 676 students in 7th and 8th grade from a suburban middle school in Southeast Michigan participated in this study in the fall of 2012.

Results showed male respondents were more likely than female respondents to (a) report engaging in all forms of traditional bullying behavior overall, including physical, verbal, and social bullying and (b) report higher rates of physical victimization and moral disengagement. Female respondents were more likely to …

An Exploration Of The Use Of Objects In The Creation, Maintenance, And Social Performance Of Self Among People With Alzheimer's Disease And Related Disorders, Jayne Marie Yatczak

Wayne State University Dissertations

In the United States individuals with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD) are faced with multiple threats to their social lives and to their sense of self. Such threats include the assumption that our sense of self is entirely dependent upon cognition and memory, elements that become impaired in AD (Kontos 2006) and images of Alzheimer's disease as the death before death (Behuniak 2011). The move to a long term care setting with its simultaneous stripping away of possessions that supply one with personal identity also poses such a threat. Although, individuals with ADRD who move to long term care …

Longitudinal Change In Regional Cortices And Fluid Intelligence, Peng Yuan

Wayne State University Dissertations

Fluid intelligence (Gf) and crystalized intelligence (Gc) are two factors of the general intelligence. They have distinct age-related trajectories of change. Jung and Haier proposed Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT, 2007) to account for the inter-person variance in reasoning intelligence. Some brain regions such as prefrontal, parietal, temporal and anterior cingulate cortices were included in the P-FIT model and were hypothesized to be involved in fluid reasoning task. Therefore, in the current study, we examined latent growth curves (LGC) of longitudinal change in Gf, Gc, prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, anterior cingulate, temporal cortex and primary visual cortex. Forty-six healthy middle-aged and …

Present Futures: Possibilities For Selfhood At A Community Mental Health Center In Detroit, Michigan, Talia Gordon

Wayne State University Theses

Since the 1990s, recovery-oriented approaches to mental illness have become the dominant paradigm in contemporary U.S. non-clinical institutional settings. Central to the recovery paradigm is a discourse of self-determination that separates psychiatric pathology from personhood and expects those diagnosed to enact and manage themselves as autonomous subjects - as empowered, responsible, independent, and transformable. For many individuals, however, everyday experiences of illness are at odds with expectations for recovery, defined as a "process of change" through which the self is continuously worked upon and improved (SAMHSA 2011). One particularly popular non-clinical recovery modality is the Clubhouse model of psychosocial rehabilitation …

Inattention And Hyperactivity Among Preschool Age Children Born Prematurely, Andrew Heitzer

Wayne State University Theses

A large body of literature shows that compared to children born at term, preterm- children are at increased risk for difficulties with inattention and hyperactivity. Less consistency exists, however, in the limited body of research exploring the contribution of early biological risk to behavioral disinhibition within the population of children born prematurely. Therefore, our goal was to examine perinatal variables that may influence activity level and hyperactivity among preterm preschoolers. Ninety-eight preterm (23.4 - 33.9 weeks gestation) preschoolers (3-4 years) participated in the study. Direct measures of inattention and hyperactivity as well as parental ratings were used to evaluate behavior. …

Accumulation Of Subcortical Iron As A Modifier Of Volumetric And Cognitive Decline In Healthy Aging: Two Longitudinal Studies, Ana Marie Daugherty

Wayne State University Dissertations

Accumulation of non-heme iron in the brain has been theorized as a cellular mechanism underlying global neural and cognitive decline in normal aging and neurodegenerative disease. Relatively few studies of brain iron in normal aging exist and extant studies are almost exclusively cross-sectional. Here, I estimated iron content via T2* and measured volumes in several brain regions in two independent samples of healthy adults. The first sample (N = 89) was measured twice with a two-year delay; and the second sample (N = 32) was assessed four times over a span of 7 years. Latent models estimated change in iron …

Coping Similarity And Psychosocial Risk Factors In Couples With Chronic Pain, Amy M. Williams

Wayne State University Dissertations

Chronic pain is an important public health problem that is associated with a host of negative individual and relationship outcomes. Chronic pain is a chronic stressor that both the individual in pain and their spouse must cope with. The current study examined how pain coping similarity within the couple predicted not only patient adjustment, but also spouse adjustment in a longitudinal study. Participants were 108 heterosexual couples in which one partner had chronic pain. The participants completed measures at 3 time points at 6 month intervals. Both the patient and spouse individually completed questionnaires pertaining to their marriage, mood, pain …