Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Do Resilience And Treatment Satisfaction Moderate The Association Between Adhd And Quality Of Life?, Allison Macht

Senior Theses and Projects

This study examined how resilience moderated the association between ADHD symptom severity and general Quality of Life (QoL) in emerging adults. Using data from an anonymous online survey distributed at six US colleges/universities, participants (N=4396; 73% female-identifying; 72% White) reported on ADHD symptomatology and their diagnostic status; resilience; perceived QoL; and satisfaction with pharmacological and behavioral treatment for ADHD (if diagnosed). As hypothesized, overall ADHD severity was inversely associated with the different facets of QoL (rs = -.18 to -.29). However, contrary to our hypothesis, inattentive symptoms showed larger inverse associations with QoL compared to hyperactive/impulsive symptoms. There was a …

The Influence Of Preventive Dental Care And Its Role On The Patient-Provider Relationship, Maria Figueroa

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Surface: Understanding The “Blurred Lines” Of Sexual Dynamics And Consent In Trinity College's Hookup Scene, Zoe Kon

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores the complex interplay of sexual behaviors, consent, and campus culture at Trinity College through qualitative ethnographic research. Delving into the nuances of hookup culture, a prevalent social phenomenon, the research examines how it often blurs the boundaries between consensual and non-consensual sexual interactions. Thirty in-depth interviews with Trinity College students reveal the intricate dynamics of consent communication and understanding within this context. The findings highlight significant gaps in students' communication about boundaries and consent, driven by the pressures of social capital and the normalization of alcohol-fueled encounters. The theme of blurred lines emerges as a central issue, …

Estrogen Replacement Therapy To Reduce Neurodegeneration And Socio-Cognitive Deficits In A Female Sprague Dawley Rat Model Of Early-Onset Alzheimer’S Disease, Miriam Kirylo

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Building Trust To Extinguish Burnout: A Qualitative Study Of Hospital, State, And Federal Policies That Impact Pediatric Nurse Burnout In Connecticut, Cecelia Angelica Morello

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores how federal and state governments, as well as individual hospitals, respond or fail to respond to pediatric nurse burnout. The problem of nurse burnout is not new, and can cause nurses to make mistakes on shift, experience increased anxiety and depression, and increase risk of patient death or injury. Solutions to burnout in healthcare workers have been organized at the hospital, state, and federal government level. However, this thesis examines a lack of research on pediatric nurse burnout more specifically. After reviewing the national landscape of hospital-based solutions, short-term policy solutions, and long-term policy solutions, I examine …

Gesundheit, Glück Und Schrecken: Der Krankmachende Eroberungszug Der Nationalsozialisten Für Die Hygiene Aus Wissenschaftlich-Humanistischer Sicht, Nic Zacharewski

Senior Theses and Projects

Hygiene and Horror- The Ethical Considerations of The National Socialists' Conquest for Health and the Parallels to Contemporary Considerations and Consequences;

A Scientific Humanist Perspective

Nicholas Zacharewski

It is a long-held misunderstanding that evil has exceptional origins. Time and history have proven that evil is banal. An environment of economic crisis, extreme patriotism, and social rejection have all played an essential role in creating some of the greatest atrocities known in human history. The National Socialist (Nazi) party, which controlled the German state from 1933-1945, epitomizes evil. Infamous for its crimes against humanity, however, relatively unknown otherwise, are the origins …

The Influence Of Digital Media Consumption On Disordered Eating And Body Image, Tasha Casey

Senior Theses and Projects

Previous research states that disordered eating is a growing and concerning issue. With the rise in disordered eating, there has been a consistent rise of the media, especially in reports of time spent online. The key to understanding, and hopefully ending, the development of disordered eating may lie in understanding the media, and how it influences a need for perfection and the necessity of a thin-body ideal. To examine this, 83 students at Trinity College completed a questionnaire consisting of questions from the Eating Disorder Inventory -3 (EDI-3) and modified questions from the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Scale - 3 …

The International Student Social Experience At A Predominantly White Institution, Arianna Patel

Senior Theses and Projects

Past research has shown widespread disparities in the way domestic students adjust to this transition versus the way international students adjust to the transition of moving into university; especially at predominantly white institutions (PWI) within The United States of America. In many studies, international students have been found to attain elevated levels of anxiety, and experience more difficulty in finding a sense of belonging. Therefore, the present study sought to examine these concerns more carefully. 49 students from all academic years at Trinity College, a PWI, were administered two surveys in order to objectively gauge their levels of anxiety and …

Evaluating Law Enforcement De-Escalation Tactics Used With Individuals Exhibiting Psychotic Symptomology, Jasmine Morgan

Senior Theses and Projects

This study evaluated the use of de-escalation measures utilized by police officers in the state of Connecticut. In particular, it focused on the use of training measures used in conjunction with individuals displaying symptoms of severe mental illness, more specifically psychotic disorders. Data was collected via an online software, allowing participants to undergo a series of survey and hypothetical scenario-based questions. The study examined demographic information, trainings regarding weapon exposure and mental illness, and de-escalation tactics used when interacting with individuals showing symptoms of psychosis. Regarding sample demographics, it was found that the 22 participants were mostly Caucasian (77%), male …

Lysosomal Storage Diseases: How Gene-Targeted Therapies Are Changing What Is Treatable, Jake Borgida

Senior Theses and Projects

Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) are a set of inborn errors of metabolism characterized by deficiencies in acid hydrolases that lead to substrate accumulation in cells and decreased or absent formation of downstream products. Substrate buildup can result in a wide range of symptoms affecting multiple peripheral organ systems and the central nervous system. Disease onset is commonly observed in infancy or childhood, but adult-onset forms also occur. Current treatments include enzyme replacement therapy and substrate reduction therapy, which are effective in the short term, but gene therapies are emerging as a potential long-term and efficacious treatment option. Delivery of gene …

Depression And Information Processing: The Influence Of Affective Cues On College Students’ Memory Retrieval, Yutong Zhu

Senior Theses and Projects

Given the reciprocal influence of biased cognition and depression on the development of depressive symptoms, this study used affective facial images to elicit corresponding negative emotions among college students with different depression and cognitive vulnerability levels to investigate the impact of negative emotions on positive, neutral, and negative word recognition. Students (N = 20) from a liberal arts college were asked to complete two self-reports to assess their level of depression and cognitive vulnerability. Participants completed two affective word recognition tasks, between which affective facial images were presented to elicit negative moods. The findings suggest that emotions had an impact …

Under The Microscope: Painting From Histology, Meg Smith

Senior Theses and Projects

My goal as an artist is to create paintings which explore the intersections of biology, philosophy, aesthetics, and personal experience. I want to challenge the viewer to engage with their own anatomy and physiology on a microscopic scale. I also aspire to communicate my sense of awe and wonder at the structures and mechanisms of life on every scale, from the cellular to the cosmic.

I am deeply interested in how physiological processes generate the human experience

—I became a neuroscience major because I was interested in the mechanisms of sensation and perception. My love of histology—the study of the …

Trinity Return-To-Learn Post-Concussion Protocol Assessment, Anna Hackett

Senior Theses and Projects

Return-to-learn protocols after concussion have received less attention than return-to-play protocols. Return-to-learn protocols are step by step guidelines for students and teachers to help ease concussed students back into their academic work. At Trinity College, faculty are given information on common effects of concussion and suggested academic accommodations. This study aimed to assess the entire return-to-learn protocol currently in place at Trinity College, with a specific focus on how well known the program is to students and how helpful they have found it, in an attempt to ascertain what aspects of the protocol work well and what could be improved. …

Mantra In Meditation: The Effect Of Sound On Relaxation, Philisha Abrahim

Senior Theses and Projects

The use of mantra as a tool for meditation is an ancient practice. It is a spiritually rooted discipline, thought to release various types of energy when producing sounds. The study expanded upon previous research, which analyzed the physiological effects of sound in meditation, to examine the “OM” sound and its effect on brainwaves and skin temperature. Participants were asked to complete four meditations: a baseline, silent, guided, and “OM” meditation. Study 1 included a sample population of 30 participants with no restriction on meditation experience. Study 2, with a sample population of 15, included participants with at minimum one …

Fomo, Liquid Courage, And The Intoxicated Self, Lindsay Pressman

Senior Theses and Projects

“Binge-drinking” cannot simply be recognized as a feature of campus culture, but as the product of a profoundly alienating one, made strikingly evident by our creation of a separate world (“drunk world”). We have created a small world of impossible possibles that exists in the corners of the actual; a separate world, in which the imagining of the self, other, and the world, is not only permissible but promoted. At the heart of college students’ “partying hard” is a longing, hope, and dogged determination that the liberating and unifying aspects of this world can overwhelm the actual...and in the meantime …

"Urban" Dengue? An Examination Of Perceived Dengue Risk And Notions Of The Urban In Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador, Charlotte Robbins

Senior Theses and Projects

Is dengue fever an urban disease as public health literature suggests? And what does this literature mean by urban? To answer these questions, I compare perceptions of the urban and dengue risk from residents who I interviewed across different sites in Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador. I ground my analysis in four urban frameworks: the bounded city theory, postcolonial theory, assemblage urbanism, and urban political ecology. I find that residents in Esmeraldas Province think about urban spaces very differently from how the Ecuadorian government defines what is urban. In particular, residents discuss government investment in infrastructure and services as an important dimension …

The Effect Of Hypoxia On Brain Cell Proliferation In Weakly Electric Fish, Petrocephalus Degeni, Kaitlin Klovdahl

Senior Theses and Projects

Oxygen levels tend to remain at a steady state concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere, yet in some bodies of water, they can fluctuate and decrease drastically. Many organisms that inhabit the swamps, lakes, streams, and parts of the ocean where this occurs have evolved adaptations to manage this environmental uncertainty and continue normal oxygen consumption. The Lwamunda swamp in Uganda is chronically hypoxic, yet it is home to many species, including the electric fish Petrocephalus degeni. P. degeni are unusual by nature of their immense brain, and the Lwamunda swamp appears ill-suited for maintaining this large, metabolically active organ. To …

Examining Gaps In Maternal Care Experience Of Women Covered By Medicaid Versus Private Insurance In Ct, Isabelle Alexandre

Senior Theses and Projects

Maternal mortality is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy. The United States currently has the highest maternal mortality rate compared to other developed countries. Pregnancy-related deaths affect a disproportionately large population of black women compared to white women. Past studies have revealed that health insurance coverage may be a contributing factor to the large number of maternal deaths occurring within the U.S. This study, in collaboration with the YWCA, investigated whether there are gaps in the maternal care experience of women covered …

Electroencephalogram As A Diagnostic Tool In Acquired Brain Injury, Michael Zarra

Senior Theses and Projects

The ability of electroencephalogram (EEG) to be used as a diagnostic device for acquired brain injuries (ABI) has been conceptualized previously. Averaged event-related potentials (ERP) derived from an EEG are suitable as markers of dysfunction however, distinctive properties in the frequency domain have not been established previously. In the present study, we examined pre- existing EEG signal data of healthy adults (HA), mild ABI (mABI), and severe ABI (sABI) human groups. Through Fourier analysis performed in MATLAB, we found that individuals in our sample population (n=80) were able to be categorized into their respective group based on common neuronal activity …

Child Age And Gender Do Not Moderate The Relationship Between Parenting Styles And Child Anxiety, Sarah Vimini

Senior Theses and Projects

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether particular parenting styles are correlated with childhood anxiety levels. The interactive effect of child age and gender on child anxiety levels was examined as well. Finally, it was hypothesized that child age and gender may moderate the relationship between parenting styles and child anxiety levels. Thus, as part of a further analysis, the effects of age and gender on the parenting style-child anxiety relationship were studied. Novel analyses were conducted on data previously collected as part of a larger study, the School-Based Treatment of Anxiety Research Study (STARS), by the child/adolescent …

The Effects Of Early Life Stress On Long-Term Potentiation In Pathway From The Medial Prefrontal Cortex To The Basolateral Amygdala, Thomas Gitchell

Senior Theses and Projects

A leading neurocircuitry model of emotional regulation points to the pathway from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to the basolateral amygdala (BLA). This pathway has been implicated in fear conditioning and extinction studies and its malfunction is hypothesized to underlie affective disorders such as PTSD and anxiety. Interestingly, the mPFC-BLA pathway shows delayed maturation in both humans and rats, rendering it vulnerable to early life stress (ELS). Indeed, several studies have linked ELS to emotional dysregulation as well as changes in the amygdala and PFC. However, no study has ever been done on the effect of ELS on long-term potentiation …

Desplazamiento Y Distanciamiento Lingüístico En El Teatro De Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda: La Mujer Que Cayó Del Cielo, Vy T. Phan

Senior Theses and Projects

In the 1980s, Rita Quintero, a Tarahumara from northern Mexico, was detained in a mental hospital in Larned, Kansas for twelve years because of ignorance and maltreatment from Kansas state officials and health care workers. As a result of their inability and lack of effort to understand her culture, the doctors diagnosed Rita with schizophrenia and forced her to take psychiatric medications. Rita’s case eventually caught national and international attention, especially through the work of the Mexican playwright, Victor Hugo Rascón Banda (1948-2008) who produced the theater piece La mujer que cayó del cielo (2000) to detail the actual events …

America's War On Drugs: Applying A Supply And Demand Framework For The Opioid Epidemic Through The Lens Of Federalism, Cari Librett

Senior Theses and Projects

For the past fifty years, American drug policy has been manipulated and enforced in a way that made it possible for drug epidemics to occur and has exaggerated their negative consequences on society. The War on Drugs policy initiatives first implemented in the 1970s created a drug law enforcement structure that has criminalized addiction and made it difficult for addicts to receive treatment. The United States is currently facing it's worst drug epidemic in history due to these policies. However, unlike previous epidemics, the opioid crisis is particularly unique not only because of the unparalleled nature of the issue, but …

Infant Mortality And Maternal Health In Hartford, Ct, Chelsea Armistead

Senior Theses and Projects

Infant mortality is the death of an infant within the first year of life. These deaths are measured annually as a rate per every 1,000 live births and is a key indicator about maternal and infant health in a society (CDC, 2018). The United States infant mortality rate is very high when compared to other equally wealthy nations. Black infants die at a much higher rate than other racial groups, including in Connecticut. The city of Hartford's Department of Health and Human Services has plans to reduce infant mortality by providing quality prenatal and postpartum care programs and services. In …

Maternal Estrogen Exposure May Be Linked To An Increased Risk Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sarah Bunker

Senior Theses and Projects

The current study explored the possibility that maternal estrogen dominance serves as a risk factor for having a child with autism. An online survey was sent to both biological mothers of autistic children (n=253) and biological mothers of non-autistic children (n=221). The survey presented a series of questions pertaining to both endogenous and exogenous factors and exposures that could increase estrogen levels. The data on exogenous exposures is treated in another paper (Helt, Bocobo, Bunker, & Lasky, in progress). The current paper presents the findings on exogenous maternal estrogen exposure and autism risk (e.g., previous history of trauma, stress, diet, …

Cross-Sectional Analysis Of Cortical Thickness Across The Lifespan, Thomas J. Hum-Hyder

Senior Theses and Projects

An understanding of the normal aging process across the lifespan is important for gaining an understanding the pathophysiological changes that occur in accelerated aging diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia (ADD) and Vascular Dementia (VaD). The present study cross-sectionally analyzed cortical thickness values derived from T1-weighted magnetic resonance images for two large cohorts: Human Connectome Project and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. The 897 participants aged between 22-36 from the Human Connectome Project and the 801 participants aged between 52-92 from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging created a robust cohort of non-demented individuals across the lifespan. We found …

An Initial Analysis Of A Long-Term Ketogenic Diet’S Impact On Motor Behavior, Brain Purine Systems, And Nigral Dopamine Neurons In A New Genetic Rodent Model Of Parkinson’S Disease, Jacob Rubin, William H. Church

Senior Theses and Projects

A growing body of research suggests that dopaminergic cell death seen in Parkinson’s disease is caused by mitochondrial dysfunction. Oxidative stress, with subsequent generation of reactive oxygen species, is the hallmark biochemical product of mitochondrial dysfunction. The ketogenic diet has been found to enhance mitochondrial energy production, protect against reactive oxygen species-generated cell death, and increase adenosine, a purine that modulates dopamine activity. The current study evaluates the effects of a long-term (5-month) ketogenic diet on behavioral, neurochemical, and neuroanatomical measures in PINK1-KO rats, a new animal model of Parkinson’s disease. Both wild-type and PINK1-KO animals fed a ketogenic diet …

What Makes A Good Birth? A Qualitative Study On Choices And Experiences Among Women In Greater Boston, Kathryn M. Dimond

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

An In Vivo Study Of The Effects Of Perinatal Caffeine Exposure On Synaptic Efficacy In The Hippocampus Of Freely Moving Adult Rats, Jee Eun Park

Senior Theses and Projects

The synapse from the perforant path to the dentate gyrus has been widely used successfully to demonstrate long-term potentiation, a cellular model underlying learning and memory. Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed psychoactive stimulants in the world. Caffeine consumption increases in alertness, improvements in motor skills, and neurological functions, and these effects have promoted its use throughout history. Although the many short term cognitive benefits of caffeine intake are well understood, the long term effects of caffeine exposure have been widely disputed. Despite this, it is estimated that over 80% of women continue to consume caffeine throughout pregnancy. …

By The Time You Read This, We’Ll All Be Dead: The Failures Of History And Institutions Regarding The 2013-2015 West African Ebola Pandemic., George Denkey

Senior Theses and Projects

Abstract

The 2013 – 2015 Ebola pandemic had a devastating impact on the countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, with a few regional and global sparks as a result of the 25,178 cases and 10,445 deaths that the epidemic has so far brought upon the three most affected nations by April First 2015. The epidemic has collapsed healthcare systems, economies, and the very social fabric of life within the subregion itself. In the light of this tragic epidemic, one question stands out above all, “How and why did this happen?” The medical literature around Ebola is sound and due …